I agree with you about 2001, but it's not the way they do today. We agree on the fact that they are more concerned by the console version. I think their Leitmotiv with Pc versions is : "live and let die". My girlfriend is a Sims fan (nobody's perfect). If you watch the way they behave with the PC community, this insane.
They sell shitty objectpacks for more than 15dollars! And Sims addicts buy it!
I notice that EA is willing to "capitalise" (does this word exists in english?) on the things they don't have to create. Buying what is sold as a brand new game and playing a game with the same graphics, interface, and bugs as the last year's version is annoying to me. I don't think 07 is a really bad game, but it lacks innovations. It's just too similar to 06.
When I met the french supervisor of nba live -very nice guy- , I told him the work you were doing out there, the strenght of the community of PC players, but he told me he didn't knew NLSC. I invited him to check out the site and I don't know if he did it. It was clear that his priority was console live gamers, which I can understand.