I talked to both ATT and RIM about this. ATT&T originally denied that they disabled BB Maps, which is untrue. They cripple your OS by not letting you use that application, and encourage you to use their fee based alternative.
RIM concedes this is true, and admit while they're not happy about it, as they feel they've made a nice map application, there is nothing they, or we, can do. Carriers are allowed to modify certain parts of the OS, like disabling BB Maps. In fact, if you read the IT white paper on BB Maps, it states that an IT dept. has this capability to enable or disable at their choosing.
This affects developers also, who have written applications that are intended to work with Blackberry Maps in some way, and now find their apps will not function. If you update OS 4.2 to OS 4.5, and have BB Maps, is is probably the old version of Maps, 1.2, not version 4.5.
Blackberrys acquired from ATT should come encased in a prophylactic to prevent carrier violation.
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