I agree that sucks, but the laws wouldn't likely be there if people hadn't pushed those boundaries to begin with. I'm sure people were quite happy in the pre- Sarbanes-Oxley US but Enron went ahead and screwed that up for everyone.
The laws were put there by politically connected businessmen who didn't like dealing with more efficient competition. Read about the original trust busting movement. Market losers resorted to using their friends in power against the winners.
