I dispute your premise that the lifetime plans somehow threaten Joyent's existence as a going concern; if the infrastructure of the lifetime services is difficult to support within Joyent's current business, I'd prefer that they honour the spirit of their promise instead of pretending that they promised something different and hoping that lifetime customers go away.

And again, I'd suggest that you get working on that time machine, because your powers of 20/20 hindsight are truly remarkable.