It was easily by-passable though, I use multiple monitors with my iBook G4 all the time.Actually this IS your father's Apple.
We've had a relatively nice few years, with the marketing dept/Steve letting some nice functional low end machines out of the door.
Nickle-and-diming at the low end is just a return to form. Who remembers the old iBooks where Apple turned off monitor spanning on external screens by updating firmware - even though the video chips supported it? That was a much more brazen attempt to force people to trade up to the PowerBooks.
Hardware, that's not so easy to get over.