...are constant questions as to why Creative doesn't just hire daniel_k to do the work they refuse to, instead of banning his development.
Because his technical competencies are about five levels below that which Creative already has in abundance. Daniel K. clearly stated more than once that he has NOT modified or altered one byte of driver binary code because that would require competencies that go well beyond his own level of skill or knowledge. All he has done is to experiment with different driver file versions pulled from various official Creative driver packages (XP and Vista), modified the install INFs and experimented with some registry keys, like the guy who does the Omega Driver packages.
Unlike amateurs, professionals have obligations to ensure that implementation of all features and function complies with all Microsoft specifications and guidelines for the OS and also to ensure that every element of the product doesn't interfere with any other vendor's hardware, applications, or drivers. Daniel K. can release untested and unvetted drivers that *might* have received testing on his own computer. One computer doesn't translate into a WHQL level quality assurance program.
Daniel K. can piss-off as many users as he wants if his drivers adversely impact system stability, other applications, and devices. The worst case consequence he could suffer is that some users might take him off their buddy list or call him a bad name. Creative plays in the big leagues and wears big boy pants, where pissing partners and licensees off can cost them millions of dollars and a lot of industry good faith that companies need.
Unlike amateurs, professionals have obligations to others from whom they licensed certain technologies that are utilized in their products. These agreements are legally enforceable contracts that forbid Creative from implementing covered technologies in particular ways that might be easier from a development standpoint but would expose the protected source code or otherwise violate implementations covered by the agreement.
These agreements NEVER say "Here you go, do with it whatever you will." Rather, these agreements ALWAYS spell-out particular implementations that are covered and explicitly disallow other implementations without authorization (i.e. renegotiating or amending the contract).
Unlike amateurs, professionals must either purchase, license, or originally innovate technologies at incredible expense, it cannot steal or misappropriate technologies that are owned by others, or otherwise do whatever it wants with them without authorization or permission. Playing by the rules always saddles ethical players with certain disadvantages compared to those who don't.
about some poor SOB who saved all his porn to a c:\temp directory...which the Creative drivers used during install then continued to wipe out. 
