With all due respect, I think you're missing the point. You SHOULD be picking companies that you want to work for and because you believe in their products. However, imagine you work for a semiconductor company and you're a leading engineer in this field. Now imagine Apple investing in this area because they believe they can design a new chip that will rival the computing power and power consumption specs of anything in existence. They'd like to hire you. Should they be allowed to approach you? I'm betting that in this scenario, you would say 'yes, they should be allowed to' and possibly, you might even be interested in hearing what Apple has to say. And I think Apple SHOULD be allowed to approach you.
This is what Palm is contending (that they should be allowed to approach folks with the best talent regardless of their current employer). However, the agreement that Apple, Google, et al had in place would prevent Apple from approaching you.