People can whine about it all they like, but truth be told: the pirates are the cause. Yes, this decision will hurt end-users. Do think about it from blizzards perspective though: why should they get stuck footing the bill from people who pirate the game? As pissed off as you all are about the lack of a lan option, they are just as upset about people who pirate games. In either case, someone will lose. It just happens that most of the time the pirates win out. In those cases all we hear is yarr matey foolish idicrasies. People honestly need to stop thinking about only themselves when passing judgement.
The lack of lan capability from the start does not mean that it can not be included in the future. If blizzard feels it would be beneficial and if enough people purchase the games (instead of pirating) the function could be restored with a patch. In any case, how often is lanplay utilized in a non lanparty situation? Most of my time was spent on battle.net on sc with only a few lan-skirmishes. Figure in that most people have high speed connections, even if you must split a fast connection 3 ways, it is more than sufficient to play an rts from the same household.