Re: In the UK...
I think Nine Tiles had greater ideas and issue 1 and 2 Spectrums had a ROM socket so it could be updated, but then Sinclair realised he sold too many and he thought it was too expensive to send out new ROMs to everyone and it was selling anyway so who cares?
But then he got upset when people considered it a games machine.
So setting up registers and calling routines listed in The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly had to suffice... I think you could use the ROM tape loader if you really needed to.