I'd look at this issue of the "morality" of disabling features from the viewpoint of economic fairness.
It costs a certain amount to develop the common core of features in a product family. If sales of the high end products are contributing more to recovery of the development cost than are the "crippled" versions, then the buyers of the crippled product benefit.
If, however, the buyers of the crippled version are subsidizing the high end products by contributing more to recovery of development costs, they may feel they've been used to subsidize purchase by those who can afford to spend more money for the product.
