So it's good to know that in the future pruning nodes can still help to strengthen the network by distributing new blocks, and very interesting that for the moment, I guess running pruning mode is just leeching.
This is not correct.
Bitcoin is not like Bittorrent where the only scarce resource is bandwidth. The bitcoin p2p network actually has a lot of upload capacity right now.
A pruned node is indeed a full node. It verifies all the rules of bitcoin. Here is a link for why that is so important
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBeginners/comments/3eq3y7/full_node_question/ctk4lnd
Plus theres the other benefits of a full node, even if its pruned. You have better privacy for example, because you've downloaded the entire blockchain nobody knows which addresses are yours.
edit: fixed formatting
Taking that reddit comment, it says that we should run our own full node for incoming transactions and that SPV nodes and web wallets can be led to believe they've "received 10000000 BTC!", which I know, and is true. For people who run Bitcoin Core as a main wallet, or even Armory and Electrum, this is not an issue, as Armory runs on top of Core and one can build an Electrum server, but what about SPV phone wallets, such as breadwallet? How do we make it connect to a specific node? These wallets connect randomly to the network, and they probably won't be a subject to an attack, so this is all academic discussion... how do you ensure your full security while running an SPV wallet?
Also, didn't understand your privacy example.
Didn't know Android wallet already allows that
For Core, you can in fact point it to certain peers, but I was referring to SPV clients only.
And thanks for clarifying the privacy explanation