>What Apple's products tend to do is trade one kind of freedom for another. They don't eliminate or reduce freedom, they transform the essential nature of it.

No. Apple's design choices remove freedom. It would be easy for Apple keep their software as it is, but also include text config files. I agree with you that "sane defaults" are something that Apple does really well, and I agree with you that it's great for many users.

But not having the option to change some behaviours; having that option locked out, has removed some freedom from some users.