I've heard this a lot and wanted to comment on it. I do believe this somewhat, but I think it's 50/50. In no way am I insulting all the hard work put into this from mods, but I have to say as with anything that is last of it's kind it starts to drive up the price a lot. For example, a lot of people are going to be interested in the last EA baseball game there is, and the PC version of course because PC guys like to customize. So I agree with what you say. The same goes for NHL 04.. I will consider buying that - and I just found it for a great price. I love the NHL series but I just don't know how much time I wanna spend on the awful (and limited) animations and sketchy polygonal figures! Just saying!
As for the topic, yeah, the pirating thing is touchy around here. I mean, the game is ancient... (not saying it's bad or anything) but it should just be posted for free download somewhere anyway. But it makes support hard in the first place and it's just.... just don't do it. Lol