Many companies do the same all the time. Why can't Windows Media Player out of the box play a standard MPEG-4 video file? Why can't the XBox 360 in Media Extender mode play anything beyond MPEG2? Why can't the Rio Karma play ATRAC, or the empeg AAC?

The lack of WMA isn't really a concern to the majority of people out there, and in fact it looks like the success of the iPod is helping to even possibly drive Microsoft away from their own proprietary codecs. The Zune for example can play AAC, as can the 360 (assuming it's not DRM, thats a different issue).

It is quite clear that iTunes isn't a power users program and won't satisfy most peoples needs here. But it's also not trying to be the ultimate swiss army knife program. It is however one of the few programs out there I can show people how to use to encode CDs and burn mixes even if they don't have any idea about the concepts behind doing such things. There isn't any configuration of LAME, no EAC ripping settings, and no worrying about a separate burning program. It just simply works to the satisfaction of most people out there.