Interesting. The only issue I'd heard with hard drives is with the dashboard update previews. If you put those on your HD (if you get in the preview) and take it to a friends, they'll be banned from live until the update is officially out if they're not in the preview. But, as with the other stuff, that's in the statement you agree to when you download the preview of the updates to your console, so no big deal IMO.
Regions where modchipping is legal--doesn't mean it's not a violation of the x-box live terms of service. But they should have just made the console region free in that region--or just not bothered selling it in that region period to avoid the negative PR from having a rule against something that is legal in the region.
But yeah, if you're right (can't tell since you haven't given a cite despite asking others for one
) they do need to refine the banning from live process a bit.