I agree completely with that. I responded because I partially disagreed with your earlier statement; I think it misses the point.

It's a locked UEFI setting causing a problem: true. The setting is causing a piece of hardware to behave in a mode not handled by the current Linux driver: also true. So there are two ways of looking at it.

First: It's a software issue that Lenovo should clear up (i.e. remove the locks on the appropriate parts of the UEFI configuration)

Second: It's a hardware issue that the Linux community can address by writing a driver for the alternate hardware mode.

For RAID hardware, it's not that unusual to have a device that isn't supported by standard Windows install media. To install Windows, you'd put the Intel-provided driver on another medium (or slipstream it into the Windows one), and click "load driver" in the installation GUI.

Lenovo apparently wants to treat that computer as an appliance; if someone borks their installation enough that even a system restore won't fix it, it's a call to Lenovo support, and a bill if the machine's out of warranty.

For customers whose Windows installations are working correctly, it's access to a faster, more power-efficient driver. That's how it makes sense, IMO.