Right, but I'm still surprised they've not at least implemented "if can't read EEPROM at boot disable EEPROM writes".
With the architecture used, they're never going to be too robust to physical access. Overall EEPROM reset button on motherboard would be best, and just admit there's no really security against physical access here.
One other point. You don't even need to remove the EEPROM, you can reprogram them in-place using an SOOC-8 clip and an SPI interface (eg buspirate). There lot of info available.
I don't think it's a serious enough security feature to be worth trying to defend against physical access.