This is obviously all conjecture, but my argument is that they made their actions as bizarre as possible because it's the only way to get out a distress call. They abruptly push a release that removes all the core functionality. They abruptly say that there will be no future releases. They wanted everyone to plainly see that this isn't them just giving up on the project because they've lost interest.

Suggesting people use Bitlocker is completely against everything they stand for. Here are some quotes off the FAQ on OP's rehosted website:

> > Will TrueCrypt be open-source and free forever?

> Yes, it will. We will never create a commercial version of TrueCrypt, as we believe in open-source and free security software.

> > Why is TrueCrypt open-source? What are the advantages?

> As the source code for TrueCrypt is publicly available, independent researchers can verify that the source code does not contain any security flaw or secret ‘backdoor’. If the source code were not available, reviewers would need to reverse-engineer the executable files. However, analyzing and understanding such reverse-engineered code is so difficult that it is practically impossible to do (especially when the code is as large as the TrueCrypt code).

> Remark: A similar problem also affects cryptographic hardware (for example, a self-encrypting storage device). It is very difficult to reverse-engineer it to verify that it does not contain any security flaw or secret ‘backdoor’.

These same people who condemned closed-source crypto in their FAQ are now suggesting using a closed-source encryption suite? It is completely absurd, and that's the point.