iTunes Music store, how I hate thee

I was onboard with the whole concept of the ITMS, at least as I understood it.  Bad me, I didn't read all the pertinent information apparently.  See, I figured that since it knew what I had bought, it has a nice handy record of my purchase history, that I could, you know have that music anywhere.  The gigs of data I have ripped from CDs, that I take care of but these m4p files----Apple provides them, they know all about them so they can manage them.  BZZZZZZZT!

"iTues Store:  Purchased content can be downloaded only once."  It goes on to say, tough shit if you didn't back up your purchase.  Now, you can authorize up to 5 machines to play your purchased content so they restrict you on where you can ... shit, I'm not even sure.  Let's call it house the content although one could house it anywhere in the world but whatever authorization does can only happen on 5 machines.  If you lose that content, you can't download it again but they'll happily sell you the content again.  So really, what is the purpose of using their service if you can't recover in the event of a failure.  Forget that I'm technical, I'll accept the mantle of "consumer."  I don't care if it's the big bad record industry or Apple's decision, I the consumer am not being served by this.  

I don't get it.  What is the purpose of them not allowing unlimited downloads?  They're tracking what machines I can play the media from, they have their DRM.  So why can't they see that I'm authorized to have this content and freaking provide it to me?  Instead I get to go all criminal and "steal" it because there is no way in hell I'm paying for it again.  No offense to Fiest and No More Kings, I enjoyed your works but not enough to pay for it twice with nothing to show for it.