They "got away" with bricking devices which were modified, which explicitly voids all warranties. I'd be willing to bet the hacks also violated TOS agreements.

While it's an ass-move to pull, and I seriously disagree with them doing it, it's fully within their rights. If you change your hardware / software, and don't expect things to possibly fail when you apply an update that doesn't expect modified hardware / software, you are an absolute moron.