Of course the firmware of these USB 2 devices are perfect and flawless, right. They comply with the standard... until they don't. Look, this could indeed be a problem with the Macs involved but travel down memory lane with me to the time when an OS X update caused cheap, third party RAM to stop being recognized. Oh the outrage, the claims of skullduggery by Apple to force people to buy only Apple RAM. The whirlwind continued until some clever individual figured out the firmware on the RAM that failed was not quite right and that Apple's recent update tightened requirements for RAM acceptance. A patch for the bad RAM was even developed so it would be recognized again by Apple's hardware. That episode pointed out that the truth often reveals itself later on and we'll find out what's really going on here too. In the meantime, of course, this new "USB-gate" will grow legs, become a viral "thing" on tech blogs, spawn class-actions, and turn Apple into a punching bag once again. Before we even know what's going on.