I can understand hardware vendors not actively working with you on designs unless you're buying in volume. That's fine, they're a business, they have to make money and not lose money.
What I don't understand about the hardware industry is the extent to which they actively restrict access to information on how their product works unless you're buying in volume. Why is it necessary to have layers of NDAs on a product datasheet? Many of the people who might write software to integrate with some hardware are not the people manufacturing high-volume products based on it! (See: Linux driver developers.)