I fully agree it reflects poorly on a company for it's employees to basically be saying this policy is bad, but your point was that it was not helpful to reduce DAS usage, which it certainly is. It means cast members are in fact following stricter rules even if they don't like it.Yes, but if employees are telling people “you should be getting it”, that is obviously a bad thing from a company standpoint.
And while being potentially bad for publicity, it's also good for deterrence. I have a feeling the fact that so many people are saying they're being denied is convincing at least some people, whether they would qualify or not, to not even try.