I agree with you. But, although I haven't studied this event all that carefully, there is a difference between corporate espionage or some sort of malicious attempt at blatantly undermining Apple -- and the way Gizmodo presented their story, afaik. Gizmodo almost seemed to poke fun at the weird circumstances of the prototype being left behind (the photos of the bar and all that). Did they reveal any trade secrets about Apple (the phone being turned off remotely and all)? Maybe, perhaps they're at fault for that.
But making fun of a company, satire, should be protected by journalistic rights. Should, for instance, the Daily Show be prosecuted if they go after an interview and someone at the pentagon accidentally reveals classified information? It could be argued that Gizmodo knew the phone had 'fallen off the back of a truck' so to speak -- but their story seemed as much about the falling off of the back of the truck as the item itself.
At what point is there some (perhaps small) burden of responsibility on the people who messed up and lost the prototype? It doesn't seem like complete justice that suddenly Apple gets to come down hard with laws that aren't exactly clearly adjudicated yet. I mean if there were precedent -- if it were clearly known that anytime you come across a prototype, you run the risk of being prosecuted for not returning it to the company immediately, then OK, Gizmodo would be at fault. Maybe there is and I just don't know.
I get the sense that Apple has decided not to fault Gary Powell because that would be sort of a ridiculous move (see Steve Wozniak's thoughts at gizmodo). But that doesn't necessarily give them the right to take out their frustrations on Gizmodo. An engineer made a mistake. If anything, it's added publicity. Move on.