The viewer has just as much right to dictate their terms of viewing (and enjoyment) as I have in how I want my work seen and interpreted. Just as I have the right to drive my car with all the windows down and the AC on in December, I listen to the manufacturer's advice and roll up the windows and try the heat. While this right exists, I may be sacrificing some quality or feature along the way.
Of course. Obviously movies are written and edited to be viewed in a solid chunk (without any obvious exceptions). How important this is varies from movie to movie, as you've noted.
Again, though the options available as I see them are:
1. I just don't watch movies, ever, because there is a ~10-25% chance they will be interrupted. At the very least, don't watch "good" movies, ever.
2. I reorganize my life so that disruptions of higher-than-0-priority do not ever occur (on a 1-100 scale, movie watching, as a form of passive entertainment, ranks in the 1-10 range of importance). This likely means selling my kids into slavery and quitting my job, and is rather unlikely.
3. I "re-prioritize" my life, realizing that movie watching is the One True Activity and therefore takes precedence over all the other possible disruptions in my life. While not sold into slavery, the kids will likely be somewhat upset by this, but of course they will understand. It's just not something I personally agree with.
4. I rent movies from a 24-hour rental place, and get dinged with having to re-rent the 10-25% of the time my viewing is disrupted.
5. I instead rent movies from a more flexible place at the same cost and essentially identical convenience (YMMV), and don't get dinged when 10-25% of the movies I watch are disrupted.
Both 4 and 5 acknowledge the reality that I will be disrupted in some fraction of the movies I watch, and of course I take likelihood of disruption into account when choosing the particular movie for the evening. Other than avoiding the medium altogether, or "changing my priorities" so that all interruptions take a back seat to the movie-watching experience, it seems #4 and #5 are the best options. From a money-wise perspective, and again with the major caveat that renting from Apple TV is generally no more convenient for me than Blockbuster (mail and store access), I'm obviously going to pick unrestricted over draconianly restricted.
Opening the "window" from 24 hours to something more reasonable (say, 36 hours even), drops the % re-rent ding to something closer to 1-5%, which makes the "convenience" aspects of AppleTV more compelling in some situations. Opening the window to ~1 week drops the penalty to significantly less than 1%, and then the convenience aspect becomes the decider between the two.
I'm sorry some people find this "whining". It all just boils down to a simple informed-consumer choice.