I don't think however people were having a "crippled" xp when using just one wired earbud in "mono" rather than "combined stereo"

I think the feature really should be "senses when individual pods are in use" and because of that feature, some automatic tasks can be applied like combining stereo or pausing the music.

I guess I am just complaining that it feels like they used one feature and got two marketing points out of it, which is fair game.