The excerpts don't seem that bad to me... provided that the features are used for the purpose of locking and tracking stolen phones. They start with the user having failed to enter the correct password too many times. If you don't turn on a password on your iPhone, this won't happen. If you lend out your iPhone and tell the person your password, this won't happen. So it doesn't seem to be about restricting use, but rather protecting against unauthorized use.
Look at the flip side: Someone steals your phone, places a bunch of calls to S. America and India, and then AT&T/Verizon/Spring/whoever stick you with a $10k bill. That's the alternative if your phone is stolen and you don't realize that it's missing.
All that said, I don't like Apple products anyway. And now that I see they are trying to prevent anyone else from protecting their phones with antitheft technology, I like Apple even less.