Company does stupid stuff, consumers speak up, company changes its mind about stupid stuff. There are far too many examples of companies just carrying on anyway, telling the consumers "we know what's best." Microsoft listened and completely reversed its controversial policies. No compromises, just straight out the door. What more could you ask for?
"This long?" Six months BEFORE release is too long? The console was only announced a month ago! In most big companies it takes at least a month just to schedule a meeting with everyone who needs to approve the feature changes.
That's fine, but keep in mind that many of the anti-consumer features that Microsoft was trying to implement have been part of the PC market for quite some time. Hard disk installs are required, games (in most cases) can't be loaned, traded, resold, etc.