That's the scary bit. People are so used to the Apple way that they can't even imagine anything else. The technical innovation stopped in 2007.

True but it is just as far from "take as little as you have to", since "as little as you have to" can be absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. As w00t admitted, the current way was just one of possible ways of implementing it. Perhaps not the best but good enough. And now it's too late and not enough reason to change it. I fully agree with that.

The phone says the info stays private and I have no reason to apriori assume otherwise. I would imagine its primary purpose is to identify your phone in case of getting lost or stolen but I would also like to know where the info is stored.