I don't disagree with your sentiments, but I think the focus was clear on the outset - it was a question, "do exclusives matter?" The end result (shocker) is that they do, more to some people than others, and are one part of the value proposition of a console.
The question as to what is the best strategy to sell a console, and whether MS are doing the right thing or not, is a superset of this thread. Exactly like the BC thread - does BC matter? There's no point talking about Sony's pricing structure or Nintendo's portability in a thread about whether BC matters and trying to guess what the value of BC is.
If you want to go ahead and start a discussion asking what the best strategy is for a console company, whether hardware, price, exclusives, BC, and roll it all into one, go for it. I imagine such a discussion to get very unwieldy very quickly as people break it down into natural subtopics, arguing over whether BC is important or not, or whether exclusives matter or not, and the good-old lists of console prices and sales successes, etc.
Regards this thread, basically everyone's said their piece and it had nicely come to a close (discussion had diverged onto what perception of consoles the general populace has). DrJay24 contributed a rather obvious bit of evidence to the 'yes, they matter' side, not warranting any response AFAICS unless someone felt there was a valid counter-point to it.