A slightly related story:
I teach in Houston Independent School District. Due to a recent change, we are required to use Internet Explorer to log into our online gradebooks when on campus. There is no technological basis for this, as running a user agent switcher with Firefox causes no problems. And yes, IE 6 is an allowable agent.
Of course, when we log in from home via the HISD-provided VPN client, it doesn't matter what browser we use.
Also of course, we can use that VPN client at work, and it doesn't matter what browser we use.
So yeah, it's just been a big bag of bureaucracy.
Allow me to tell you some time about their wireless networking policy changes that start next week. That's a whole other ball of fail.