At launch the PSN linking was required. It was only disabled because the PSN servers were causing some of the overall server issues at launch. They made the decision to temporarily remove the requirement to get the game more stable while Sony fixed their server issues. I highly doubt Arrowhead though that would take nearly this long, so the number of affected users would be minimal. But clearly it took longer than planned, or Sony took this long to let them know the issues were fixed and they needed to require linking again. Given Sony’s rather spotted history, it could be either honestly.

Linking clearly was intended to be brought back at some point once that issue was resolved. The only bad decision Arrowhead made was not making it more clear to people between then and now that login would still be required at a later date.

The Steam page listed the PSN requirement from day one. The sales page setup should have prevented sales in non-PSN regions, that not being done looks to be due to Sony as the publisher failing to limit that as they should. That’s either sheer incompetence or greed to try to get as many additional sales as possible and try to force people onto PSN after the fact. Maybe both.

To be honest, the contract requirement for PSN isn’t the issue here. It was there from the beginning, and disclosed on the sales page. Sony’s shit servers were an issue, and the ultimate root cause of all of this bullshit. If the PSN servers weren’t dogshit to start with none of this would have happened.