Silly Required Registration Move

It might surprise you that aversion to production registration doesn't have to be lazy or nefarious in nature.  There are other valid reasons.  I'm not trying now, nor ever in the past, to exercise any warranty "rights".  I'm looking to redeploy it, not return or exchange it!  In no shape, way, or form is the Netgear company being shortchanged by the repurposing of an existing piece of equipment.  On the other hand, the Customer sure has!

Trying to track down a single item purchase through Accounts Payable from years ago, a few minutes, lol.  You're right about the potential to roll back to the previous firmware.  No interest now, it really just can-kicks the problem.  Netgear no longer appears trustworthy. 

"Figure now the (non-stated!) reason for the mandatory registration..."   uh huh.  Look, there is simply no excuse for removing functionality with a firmware "upgrade".  If fraud is really the concern, don't honor warranty or support without registration.  Easy.  If access to future patches/updates is the ruse, then registration should have been a prerequisite to accessing the offending current firmware.  But it wasn't.  It was essentially a one-way registration trap.   

On a side note, if your switches have internet access...  well, that's almost criminally negligent.