I doubt seriously that the decisionmakers read the official feedback either.
I was VP Marketing of SuperMac Technology from 1988 to 1990. My wife worked at Apple in their internal audit group around that same time. I have seen this story before. Apple back then in the age of Sculley became "corporate". The company lost its purpose and almost went down. The Apple Board was smart enough (or lucky enough) to bring back Jobs, who was personally responsible for creating the new markets-mp3 music players, high quality laptops, digital entertainment, iPhone and iPad-that made Apple what it is today. In my observation, Apple is reverting to a "corporate" culture following Jobs' death, as is the normal process when a company reaches a certain age and size. For example, see Xerox and many others. In essence, the organization grows sufficiently large that it becomes its own ecosystem and becomes "self-referencing". In other words, the company personnel care more about what happens internally than they do about what happens externally (for example, with their customers).
Jobs was unique as a very active technical founder staying with his company for many decades. Apple will not be able to duplicate his combination of creativity, drive and ruthlessness. I expect that Apple will continue to develop what was in the pipeline at Jobs death, but will gradually cease introducing revolutionary products or markets. We all better start looking for alternatives. This immediate problem of the elimination of syncing is only a small symptom of a much larger issue.