Don't assume that everybody shares your opinions, even if those opinions are popular. The OP could be a fan of robust intellectual property regimes, including software.
However, if the authors were aware of the image inlining features in other products before writing the patent, it does strike me as dishonest to then pretend to the USPTO that they didn't exist. I can't claim to know what the authors were or were not aware of, so I can't make any judgements on that issue.
Or, for a cynical view: for companies churning out tons of patents, it's optimal to churn out as many patents as possible. The more patents the USPTO has to deal with, the less effective they are at their jobs. The less effective they are, the more mistakes they make; the false positives (i.e. rejected applications) can be clarified to be non-infringing, and the false negatives… well, now that's one more patent in the war chest.