Nightmarish PR was probably an overstatement, but I would expect a considerable backlash from customers who will be having a free feature removed-- for no reason other than to make Intel money.

Seeing as AMD are getting back into the game with their new Zen architecture, I think this is a very unwise move by Intel.

but it was never advertised as a feature, in fact i believe the opposite is true, they advertised it as non-overclockable.

Very true, but having the loophole there is beneficial for users who want to overclock it-- bug/feature debate aside.

They advertised it as non-overclockable, but some users found out it was -- why bother patching? To force those users to buy the more expensive 'unlocked' chips for something that used to be free.

Even if not advertised, it was known to OC. Some people bought it for this purpose and they surely won't be happy.