From what I've heard, ESRB is really mad at Rockstar, to the point of possibly changing its rating to something higher.
Frankly, I agree with this. I think its important to realize that this isn't user-created, this is stuff Rockstar made, in a game that has a considerable history of being modded within moments of release. To not disclose this to the ESRB (I hope thats the right phrase, I know its something like that) was - at best - unacceptable.
My guess? Rockstar "took it out" before the ratings people got ahold of it, "forgot" to tell them about it, and hoped nobody would unlock it. Morons.
Final edit: After reading the above article, I can tell you that Rockstar is full of zergcrap. To get Hot Coffee, all someone had to do was change one little entry to another one. None of this decompiling/recompiling crap. Hell, SA's Admin Console has a button to unlock/relock it, already.