I agree with points from both Nadrek and TravisDBA.

Right on with having to hold for legal reasons. I got that. Many of my customers are food producers or food handlers. A lot of the time they deal in frozen product. Looking at the work of Clarence Birdseye it is easy to see where one could have frozen product in inventory for over a hundred years. Then if you sell that product to a retailer who keeps in in good frozen condition it might be on their shelves for another hundred years. In the case of a product recall I might be forced to keep that data the whole time. Medical and Tax records have to be retained. Each with their own legal requirements.

Travis, I fear that it is fear that drives the resistance. Fear generated by the above. Developers don't want to raise costs by having a data removal policy in the specifications somebody has to go research the legal requirements