From reading the messages yesterday, it appears that it was none of the big guys who caused the tools to be pulled but a small software developer who objected to the name of the speller as being too confusing with the name of its own (pay) product. No big conspiracy that I can see.
Given that the dispute appears to involve only one product (the speller), I suspect that deadstick my be playing somewhat of a poker game here by pulling all products in the hope that pressure from people like us will put the objecting software company on the defensive so it will drop its request to change the name of BB Spellchecker. Or maybe deadstick is just fed up with putting a lot of work producing excellent products which he gives away for free, and the thanks he gets is being threatened with a law suit. I suspect its a combination of both.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. I did download BB Today 1.5 last week and find it a marvelous program.