Isn't this also the same reason 'prosumer' storage hardware / use of off the shelf stuff mostly doesn't exist? If the storage manufacturers dared provide a low level interface option to the real hardware without the easy to for Windows traditional abstractions then they'd both get their lunch eaten (by everyone that moves their current excuse for market segmentation into the OS / Database daemons) and take a loss at still providing for the majority market share of dumb as bricks Windows that lacks a mature VFS API other than NTFS (it's defacto VFS API that MS should just declare all new filesystems implement due to the crushing weight of legacy).