Well . . . forever ago, devs there managed their own installs. And maybe they had boxes that weren't up to snuff for joining ntdev and maybe they had something so old it was basically a network infection, so MSIT would deal with them.

But anyplace that forces machine config on devs? They don't really want devs. Even Ballmer valued developers (developers . . . developers). And he was a tragically engineering-impaired human being.