Erm... no
"This is akin to cancelling a web-hosting account then complaining you lost all the files stored there... or closing an email account then not being able to read emails stored in it."
Not quite no, its akin to cancelling an email account, the email account you have cancelled the opening your email client and deleting all your email, contacts and calendar. If you cancel yes you lose the ability to access the information on the server, but the server should not then have the ability to delete your emails/contacts/calendar. its poor, sloppy programming from Apple.
Its also no where near as bad as Active Synch, ok so you can't resynch with the same name, thats not a problem because it isn't destroying the data on your mobile phone, you just resynch with a different name, so how you can possibly say that its not as bad as active synch is beyond me, active synch didn't clear out your contacts etc. (thats at the pro-mac anti-ms author of this piece)