I think you're coloring Apple to be far more nefarious than they actually are. For many people, the change to only load media in response to a user's explicit action is a huge step forward, as they can confidentially browse over cellular networks without blowing out their bandwidth cap. As a user, I definitely appreciate that behavior.

And don't think I'm not affected as a developer – all the time people use our product, Hype, to create content that includes audio and video elements, and we're stuck explaining to them the behavioral differences between desktop and mobile browsers.

Apple's not evil; they're pragmatic. Right now, users needs win in this situation. Hopefully we get a more flexible solution in iOS 6.