I'd say it's stupid. I'm sure that most of the content doesn't need JavaScript to provide the functionality, it's only a typical example of the "developers" being lazy ("everybody
must have that what I have" syndrome). The "you need JavaScript" should only appear for the interactive segments that do need it, not for the whole sites.
Second, their servers already got my browser identification through my http query, so presenting the table with all old browsers is also very stupid.