I know exact how you feel Punderland. I have the same problem with the starwolves series. When you change hardware in your comp or format you HD you can only install the game 3 times. After that the game you bought is useless.
Only thing you can do is buy your games with steam. A game bought with steam don,t have this awfull protection.
But when you are thinking the same as me that don,t want to get pushed to buy with steam then our future isn,t great in the gaming world.
It means buying retail is useless in future.
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=15725