Perhaps it's an act of intimidation, more than likely it was placed on the product years in the past and it would cost the company a lot of money to take the patent number off.

Also, if I'm looking to make a competing product, and I see a patent number on a similar product, would it not make sense for me to check if the patent is still in effect? I'm not just going to see a patent number and say to myself, "oh shoot, they already got it, guess that's the end of that."

And from a consumer perspective, do I really care if there is a patent for this product or not?

My compromise would be to say the company would be required to have the patent numbers taken off and perhaps a fine to the USPTO, but why should this lawyer get money?