First, some background:
Although I've been designing user interfaces my whole career, I got my start in the home theater market because I received a programmable remote as a gift and, as I tend to do, went overboard trying to figure out ways to get the thing to do more than it was originally designed to do. I made a bit of a name for myself here on Remote Central by uploading my files for others to use as they saw fit. This brought me to URC's attention, and years later, I am the company's Product Design Manager.

So yes, I know that there are DIY people who can do excellent programming and setup of home theater systems. In fact, a DIYer can (and often does) devote hundreds of hours of exploration and programming into their own system. This is something that professionals can't do for purely economic reasons. Instead, professional installers develop a very different skill that few DIYers develop: they know how to produce really great results with a broad variety of equipment, in a fraction of the time a DIYer would take to produce the same result. Like anything, if you get training and years of experience on how to do something efficiently, you're going to be better at that than someone who's passionately doing the same thing for the 1st or 2nd time.

I help design these products and the software that programs them, but I can guarantee that in the time it would take me to program and install my own home theater setup, any trained and seasoned URC installer could program and install similarly complex theaters in ten homes, with equal or better results. And their cables would be far more organized than mine, to boot! They just do this way more than I do. They've learned all the tricks of the trade through training and repetition, and they've become masters at things that I merely know. That's what professionals do.

Consider this: A DIY car customizer can create incredible results with his own car, but put him in the BMW factory handcrafting cars to the exacting standards BMW expects and he would be lost because he's not trained or experienced enough to do that. Similarly, the factory employee probably doesn't have the specific skills to customize like the DIY guy. But that's okay. They have different goals, experience, and training, and most importantly, the expected end results are different.

So while it's true that dedicated DIYers are certainly more than capable of excellent results, it's also true that their goals and their means are different than those of a pro. DIY results can be stellar, but they're not the same kind of results professional installers need to produce. It's also true that the number of dedicated DIY installers and programmers is dwarfed by the professional installation market. URC, like any company, has to focus on meeting the needs of its market. Yes, meeting the needs of that market creates some roadblocks and annoyances for DIY customers, but that's not URC's goal. That's just a side effect of doing business in a way that meets the needs of the professional installation market.

URC holds no contempt for the DIY market. The fact that I started DIY and now design for the company is testament to that. I still love to tinker, but I've learned the needs of the professional market, and I design to their requirements, not what excites me personally. Similarly, if you're a DIY master, you have to be aware that the product line wasn't designed for your specific use needs. Conflicts about features and distribution are naturally going come about when you're using a product that was designed for some other market and you're trying to make it fulfill your requirements.

So in short, I see a simple conflict of goals here. No company wants to annoy people or fail to meet their expectations. But no company can meet every need with every product, every time. In our case, professional installers are the people who get our products into the hands of consumers, so we have to meet the needs of the installers so they have the tools, training, and experience to meet the needs of the end customer.