The vendors are always very mindful of every cent they put in extra in the product that doesn't give a meaningful effect on the bottom line (i.e. increase sales or prevents sales from falling off).
As long as customers are buying the product and not requiring this feature it will not be made available as it will require using a 16MB EEPROM instead of the 8MB one.
That wouldn't help the situation. You and many others would have to claim that you will NOT buy another hard disk without the feature. That's a much harder claim to make, but the only way you would have n impact on bottom line.
As long as customers are buying the product and not requiring this feature it will not be made available as it will require using a 16MB EEPROM instead of the 8MB one.