As far as I am concerned this "little used" feature in Word 2007 introduced the .docx format which has had the desired effect: As it was pre-loaded on new computers, users started using it and thus, for a time, other users of the previous versions of Word were unable to read .docx files. Thus they were forced to acquire their own copies of word 2007. This was really why Microshaft wanted to do it and have no doubt made significant profits from their action - and it why we call them Microshaft!
Although there is now a patch available which enables some earlier versions of Word to read .docx files, I bet that this court decision will not require all versions of Word to generate .doc files by default and scrap the .docx format!
P.P.