It sounds to me like they decided to decommission the activation server, then provided these binaries to somebody who called tech support because they couldn't

It sounds to me like they decided to decommission the activation server, then provided these binaries to somebody who called tech support because they couldn't validate their install, and the links to these binaries became public on accident. It sounds much more like some kind of internal screw up than some kind of policy decision--which is unfortunate, since many people have pointed out there are good business reasons to do this or something like it.