Sorry but I don't think giving things away for free requires ridicule. If you want to place guidelines on things like these then feel free to apply them when you start giving your own things away. Until then we will do what we choose.
Nice move WD! I have a lot of respect when companies do things like this and decide to give away stuff even though the goals were not completely met. This makes me more likely to buy WD stuff in the future. Though I do already have every Raptor drive that has been released since the original 36gb one. AND they all still work great. Just can't mess with quality like that.
Back before clear acrylic cases were a thing I made my own out of sheets of acrylic that I cut up. It took for ever but looked great. I had the motherboard installed but the rest of the parts were a few feet away. I slid the case over about a foot to be closer and static went through and shocked and fried the brand new mobo before I could ever power it on once. This was more than 10 years ago and the board is sitting next to me at this moment because I still can't let go of the first board I ever bought.