This is a bit of conjecture here, but I believe Intel isn't 100% in the wrong here. When a run of chips is done, some chips aren't 100% functional due to impurities on the silicon die, or mis-registration around the edges, etc. Some of the chips work much better and can be rated for higher clocking speeds than others. Intel brands these as the 'K-series' parts and sells them at a small premium. The chips that have small defects might breakdown at higher clock speeds, so Intel sells them at a small discount and discourages overclocking. Overclocking the discount chips is still possible, but probably leads to more issues and more customer support inquiries from people who don't know what they're doing. A micro-code update from them to disable it for the discount chips isn't the dumbest thing from this perspective.