Here are my observations. Take them with a grain of salt.
When it comes down to the money, yes, the motivations between the consumers and WotC are indistinguishable in any way that counts. Both parties want as much as they can get. Neither WotC nor their consumers have any altruistic imperatives at work. The consumer doesn't think he owes the FLGS a living. WotC doesn't think they owe consumers anything more than whatever it takes to get their money.
The limit to each party's ambitions is the point of diminishing returns. When their penny-pinching starts to actually cost them they change strategies. The consumer who starts getting worse products and services changes his buying patterns. The publisher who starts losing sales changes his content development, distribution patterns, and price points.
Neither the gamers nor WotC have any moral high ground to hold over the other, in my opinion.
And yes, a lot of the angst is derived directly from Edition Wars, whether people admit to it or not. Frankly, some people I run into want WotC to fail so 4th Edition will be labeled a failure and a dead game so their friends and associates will come back to their "one true edition of D&D." I see similar behavior with over-aggressive Pathfinder fan-boys. They want to make room for their own game by artificially restricting what other consumers have access to. It is a very aggressive way of using marketing to eliminate rival products from a market.
Paizo isn't really an "acceptable target" or a prominent one like Hasbro-WotC, so I don't see the same direct tactics being used to try and herd people into 4th Edition. There are plenty of 4th Ed "Edition Warriors" out there flaming away, though typically in a derivative discussion role - attacking people who criticize 4th Ed rather than attacking alternate systems and publishers.
- Marty Lund