In a lot of ways, I find the issue of bootleg merchandise even more annoying. I personally have purchased several festival t-shirts that were not created by the trademark owner. If you are not interested in the official (read as expensive) merchandise, why not buy something that you like for a much more reasonable price? In the case of t-shirts and other clothing, the trademark owner is still getting free advertisement from you wearing gear with their brand name on it.

I know I personally use the information I acquired in my discrete math class on a daily basis. Along with the day-to-day use, taking the discrete class really expanded my thinking and (I feel) ultimately made made a much better coder. But like most of the other posters are saying, take both classes. While earning my degree I was required to take both, and actually end up using the vector stuff on a fairly regular basis too (not as much as discrete, but some).

Pretty sure I would get absolutely nothing done without my music playing. For that matter, I recently switched from headphones to speakers and just try to keep it at a reasonable volume for my neighbors. I think your boss is either making a power play or, like others have said, people are complaining that you get to listen to music and they don't. Not really any advice to give other than to keep fighting, maybe you could get a few of the other programmers to politely voice their concerns about the policy change. Good luck.