I have to agree with you Lemurtek. And I'm looking at this as both a customer and a merchant equally. As a customer, while I appreciate the freebies, such restrictions tell me that a merchant places their mesh as golden above my artistic interpretation, texture work and additional modeling on every other aspect of my render where their single mesh is only a small portion of.
As a merchant I don't see the legal leg to stand on from such a restriction. I put out both models and textures as freebies and will not restrict someone's render. That belongs to them, not me.

And yes, a heads up before downloading would be a good idea. I'd rather not spend the time babysitting a download of a restricted item on my dialup.

...... Kendra