I'm not sure about the removing features, but there are quite a few little things that would make life easier, and they're not usually important enough for someone to write a utility for. Or profitable enough.

Microsoft buys small companies they think will generate sales, they don't necessarily look to improve the lives of DBAs by fixing simple things. I know they want to prove an ROI, and SS2K8 includes things to help the DBA, but not some simple, low level things that occur constantly, like fragmentation, like cleaning up the backup process to prevent people from inadvertently striping backups, breaking chains, etc. It seems that only those things that marketing things will "sell" the product are added.

My point is this is not necessarily the best approach. This has led them to have a reputation of not cleaning up the product and not fixing things. Look how many people still run SS2K and don't want to move. The fancy new features aren't impressive or needed, and the lack of polish on little things has people concerned about making changes.

I think they could get a lot of benefits from fixing things rather than focusing so much on new features.