For whatever reason, this has certainly taken off in the news today. Not just in general news services either, but in a lot of tech-news sites like Engadget and ReadWrite.
I think UA is about to learn about The Streisand Effect.
Call this much attention to something that is, in practice, easy to take advantage of, and people will take advantage of it. As has been discussed to death, most travelers are not FT'ers, and so things like miles and PQDs don't matter much to them. There's suddenly a lot of computer-savvy, casual travelers who now know about something they otherwise would never have thought about.
So UA will crack down on travelers. The only way they could "punish" someone without a meaningful MP account would be to detect hidden-city ticketing mid-trip, and cancel their (separate) return ticket, stranding them at their destination. THEN that will make the news yet again, and various activist Attorneys General will start crowing about how companies can't punish customers who aren't breaking the law, etc etc etc...
This will not end well for UA, regardless of the actual legal outcome.