You guys do know that more than likely the whole point of this is so that they can remove any and all flashable drives from the network.
"OOPS WE DESTROYED YOUR MODDABLE XBOX, LETS GIVE YOU ONE THAT YOU CANT MOD AS EASILY =D!"
It's all about game sales, they want people to buy games and not burn them. Microsoft makes more on game sales than they do on the hardware, how else to get people to buy more games, than to destroy their old moddable consoles?
Granted, someone will always find a way to mod a console, but if they can go a year of people buying games, it'll probably be worth it.