Oh, neat, I remember borrowing money from friends to buy one shortly after release, and spending many months repaying it. My main thought process, besides it being a cool PC, was "the higher the statistics, the better the outlook for Linux adoption". :D
Can barely believe it's been three years already.
So, just to make this clear, they didn't just not really implement their fabled transparency, they also walked back on the control mechanisms that were already in place.