It's not a ploy. Microsoft has made it clear that they will disable borrowed or stolen product IDs at every opportunity.
But you know, Microsoft isn't the only one patching products left and right--they're just the only one in the news. Take a look at the change logs of some your favorite software packages (Apache, Perl, XFree86, etc.) and you'll see what I mean. The good news is that Microsoft *is* patching their software instead of just forgetting about it. Anyhow, there are indeed human beings working for Microsoft, and they make mistakes just like the rest of us.
