> Kind of defeats the entire purpose of remote wipe.

Hardly. The remote wipe will clear all of your private data. Seems like the purpose is well met to me.

Activation Lock is there to prevent resale of stolen devices, which simultaneously increases odds of return to you, and decreases odds of iOS theft overall.

Ahh, I've never heard the term before. I assumed it was the screen lock and the activation prevention was in apple's servers.