I would have gladly disabled that misfeature on my old car if I could've. It was always a huge pain to find the activation code, and having to contact a dealer and jump through their hoops is a huge hassle.

The funny thing is that for this particular car, removing the radio (really the full navigation head unit) would have been a major undertaking, requiring specialized tools and quite a bit of time. If a thief has that much time and expertise, losing the radio is the least of my worries.