In this case you where right, and the removal of the additional fields turned out to be a mistake. More often though I see this going the other way, you end up carrying around tables and fields that aren't needed and just muddles the picture. Even worse is "Well we added this field, but we're not using it, so let just stuff something else in there". It can get really ugly really fast.

The article is a little different, because "YES, they do need the calculator, people should know what your service costs up front". If they want to do away with the calculator, then they should restructure their pricing plans, so that it will no longer be required. That just not an IT problem.