I'm not happy with the current system either. But I do not see IP legal actions as all evil, the purpose can be purely to set road blocks for competitors. But as long as it is within the bound of law. After all Android's price barrier is also pretty insurmountable.
I'm very skeptical that HTC does not know what Microsoft's been licensing. Others do not, sure.
and yes, i'm sure HTC knows what they are licensing. but they've signed NDAs as part of their agreement, and microsoft refuses to publicly disclose what patents they think they hold. if google could learn what patents microsoft is charging license fees for, they could potentially write android in a way that didn't infringe on those patents. microsoft doesn't want this. they want android to infringe, so they can continue to collect money off it. this is a malicious abuse of the patent system. there is no other way to describe it.
and in most of microsoft's existing licensing agreements with android vendors, that haven't even disclosed what patents are being licensed. there's just some vague threat that they have a claim, and you're expected to pay up if you don't want to get sued.