Hahaha, so true.
I'm not very familiar with legalities, especially when it comes to US law, but i'm surprised all the simulator fans and scale modellers haven't taken up one of those class action lawsuits or something similar.
The thing here is that these machines were built with the people's money and manual labour under contract from the government which is supposed to serve these people, so as long as they have been phased out of active service one could argue that they are part of history and public domain.
I'm not holding my breath on a positive resolution, but it would be cool to see some movement. Chalk this one up there with the rest of the causes i might take up as an eccentric billionaire, if i ever won the lottery that is