> The way I figure it, when value is being knowingly and unnecessarily destroyed, someone somewhere in the chain is being irrational.

Well, the model I see people using to describe EA basically amounts to buying studios with good long-term revenue prospects (known brands that, if consistently executed at a slightly below-average level, should maintain decent sales because the fans know what they're getting every time), and deciding to extract all of that future revenue all at once, by hyping up the latest incarnation of the series to extreme degrees while not bothering to execute at all. More sales now, less work now, no sales later.

If you want to stand by describing this as irrational, I wouldn't say the obvious candidate is EA shareholders. I'd say the obvious candidate is the studios who can't manage their brand well enough that it's worth more than the EA strip-mining approach. If you think that the long-term revenue stream has more "inherent worth", the studios are the ones squandering it.

(postscript -- I'm pretty sure I accidentally downvoted you when selecting a quote from your comment. I wish I could undo that.)