Honeycomb adds a framework to support DRM plugins. Android 3.1 adds an actual implementation of a DRM plugin called Widevine (acquired by Google in Dec. 2010). Android 3.1 also supports HDCP. The DRM plugin is technically not built into Android; it's a modular add-on. The interface to the DRM plugins is part of Android.
In order for DRM and HDCP to actually work the DRM system has to validate that the system can be trusted. (That's all that DRM does.) If the system is rooted, apparently the DRM system can not validly claim that the system can be trusted.
Google's YouTube Movie Rental service that's part of the Android Market on Android 3.1 apparently relies on the DRM system to validate that the system can be trusted. (This condition may have been part of the deal to get the movie studios to allow their content to be distributed and rented through the Android Market.) If the DRM framework reports that the system can not be trusted because the system has been rooted then the jig's up -- no movies.
Bottom line: you can't have a movie rental service that requires that the system be trustworthy and a possibly untrustworthy system that would result from the system being rooted. You can have one or the other -- not both.
Apple's consolidated.db is not a "mistake". A mistake would not have gotten rewritten for iOS 4 when the database got converted from XML to SQLite and moved to user data.
Also iOS no longer uses Skyhook as of iOS 3.2. Plus Skyhook is for Wifi access point location data, not cell-tower location data. Apple uses its own database for that now which you consent to update with your location data. http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002145.html
This seems like a mighty convenient "bug" given that HTML frameworks like jQuerry Mobile are just starting to be able to deliver a native-app-like user experience.