The manufacturers didn't want a 'gray market' in their products. This is actually pretty common and a huge problem in the SCUBA industry where regulators are available in foreign countries (relative to US) for considerably less money. The customers in the US are getting ripped and will often order from foreign sources but the manufacturer claims you won't get a warranty and your local retailer may no perform the usual maintenance. Sometimes retailers order from these sources in bulk and sell the products for less than MSRP. Not the kind of thing the manufacturer wants to see as they try to protect their authorized resellers.
But how is a used item gray market? I've never heard of anyone being challenged about selling used equipment.
Yes, I have a problem with the idea I can't sell my used equipment as well. But this is old news, it isn't a current issue and, yet, it keeps getting dredged up. Over and over... Old news... Just look at eBay for alternative facts.
The other issue that was mentioned a few posts above is the lack of firmware updates (I suspect aimed at Rigol) where there have been quite a few updates in the 2+ years the scope has been on the market. I have done two official updates in the several months I have had mine.
If you watch the inventory levels at a place like Tequipment, you get the idea that they sell about 1000 DS1054Zs per week. And they're just one supplier! This scope must be the best selling model of all time.
Adding features to a DSO like decoding or FFT increases a manufacturer's NRE costs. But it's a one time deal spread over the sale of tens of thousands of scopes. I can see Rigol supporting the DS1054Z for quite a while if some new scope doesn't come along and unseat the absolute ruler of the low end scope market.
Until I bought the DS1054Z, I worked around the 2 channel versus 4 channel thing for decades. I bought the scope specifically for the 4 channels and decoding. If I need bandwidth, I'll drag out my Tektronix 485 350 MHz scope. But I also bought the DS1054Z because it is inexpensive. If I had to pay, say, $800, I wouldn't have bought it. But for $400, no problem! Sign me up!