--note the asterisk" and then saying that the little asterisk absolves you from all your lies is not right. Everyone knows it is not right but they let it slide until a company with a lot of money does it, then they go after it because of the profit potential.
Wrong is only wrong when you can make money proving it is wrong. It is sad, but it is the current state of humanity at this point in time.
If common sense tells you it is misleading, then it is misleading. To say that people who purchase budget equipment have no right to be told the truth, only shows your ignorance or the fact you are working for the marketing department.
This really boils down to the fact that companies do anything they can to sell garbage to people. If you let them, they would sell you plastic replicas of computers with asterisks in fine print on the back that says "This is not an actual computer, but represents your investment in the possibility to receive a future computer that may or may not function as represented by the non-working replica". Which basically absolves the company from actually replacing the piece of plastic you bought with the real thing.
By the same analogy I could say that when you came into the hospital emergency room, because you where paying for cheap health insurance, I gave you all the tools necessary to diagnose your heart attack, but you died because you couldn't figure it out. All the information was there, and all the tools where at your disposal, so do you deserve to die?