This is the Microsoft we know. Welcome back!
Sigh, haters gonna hate.
If they were actually trying to profit from Microsoft's design, they wouldn't be providing a "Microsoft Word Mode" they would just make that their only interface. The idea is that they would be trying to avoid innovating themselves and would just be attempting to use Microsoft's interface design research to make a quick buck.
You see how this is not about trying to cut corners in designing an interface, and more about user familiarity?
(I'm being charitable here in assuming for the sake of argument that design is a legitimate thing to patent. I don't think that's the case)
[lets not get into how wrong they are, they exist that is all]
I have no wider proof, but of non-technical people I know who use Windows they pretty much all fall into this category.
Having said that yeah this is pretty disappointing behavior but I wouldn't be surprised if it's simply part of the company doing things others don't know about; maybe if enough attention is drawn to it it'll be dropped? Yeah that's probably unlikely but so many of their groups are full of awesome people and it sucks when a company does something stupid to tarnish its image.
That said, I disabled it in both areas as I found it incredibly annoying... As for forced updates and some of the other privacy issues, I do give them a bit of a pass on that because I'd rather not have to deal with 3+ year old browsers ever again... once IE9-11 die, I'm hoping that's it... the same goes for the devs at MS, and elsewhere.
Ahem, from the terms and services:
> When you acquire, install and use the Program software and services, Microsoft collects information about your use of the software and services as well as about the devices and networks on which they operate. Examples of data we may collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; location, browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; voice, text and writing input; and application usage. For example, when you:
> when you input text, handwrite notes, or ink comments, we may collect samples of your input to improve these input features, (e.g., to help improve the accuracy of autocomplete and spellcheck).
Are you ok with your handwritten notes and input text living on Microsoft's servers so they can improve their spellcheck?