I do think Apple was right to remove support for their crappy reader. In any domain where you have tons of options (like rss readers) I'd rather have no feature than a poorly executed one. No feature means I'll go out and get a good version of it. A poorly executed feature (especially from apple) means I'll probably put up with it longer than I should.
However, given that they were going about destroying access to user's data (the collection of rss feeds), I think the classy move would have been to run a script on install that checks if the user is subscribed to any feeds. If they are, export them into a well formatted file on the desktop, and give the user an alert through that highly touted new alert system, and give them a link to the app store that searches for rss readers that can receive the exported file. They'd get to introduce a bunch of new features that they seem to be very proud of, and they wouldn't destroy[1] a user's access to their own data. Which does seem like a pretty big deal to me.
[1]Yes, I know she was able to access her data eventually. That seemed like an unacceptably difficult process to go through for the sort of users Apple is trying to appeal to.
They didn't destroy the data [1] but regardless a migration path should have been provided. It wouldn't have been to much effort to check to see if they used the RSS feature and then basically tell them "this feature is not supported, but we see you use it - how about we make an export so you can use one of the other great readers out there". The upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion did something similar when it decided to change the trackpad direction, so the functionality to notify the user is definitely there!
[1] Sorry: I do see that you mention that later on. Though, in general I'm not sure why so many HN comments think it did when the article said that it was still available?
Added bonus: it would give them a natural way to advertise the App Store.
Oh, and it is not "if the user is subscribed". The installer would have to check all user directories. And then, it would be a (small) privacy invasion to gather that information. Some sysadmins, on principle, would not want to know that at least one of their users subscribed to RSS feeds.
However, given that they were going about destroying access to user's data (the collection of rss feeds), I think the classy move would have been to run a script on install that checks if the user is subscribed to any feeds. If they are, export them into a well formatted file on the desktop, and give the user an alert through that highly touted new alert system, and give them a link to the app store that searches for rss readers that can receive the exported file. They'd get to introduce a bunch of new features that they seem to be very proud of, and they wouldn't destroy[1] a user's access to their own data. Which does seem like a pretty big deal to me.
[1]Yes, I know she was able to access her data eventually. That seemed like an unacceptably difficult process to go through for the sort of users Apple is trying to appeal to.