I agree. I like tinkering myself. But then why mention avoiding spending a hundred dollars for a new device, but spending a couple of hours as if those hours are worth less than said amount of money.
Maybe some people are happy with either option, but it sure is unethical to force that choice, especially when all the effort it could have taken from the manufacturer was to add a boolean flag.
I'd complain too, not everyone is in the same situation, and this is dodgy behavior anyway regardless of me liking the workarounds or not, simply having to workaround is bad enough in principle.