I answered this in detail yesterday before this site crashed but now my post has disappeared. I doubt there's anything that I can tell you that'll change your opinion on this but it's not the dealers who set these "rules" AND it's the exact SAME for ALL car manufacturers, so if you buy a GM, Toyota, BMW, MB (etc) and don't ask or complain about a specific problem, no dealer personelle will look into and/or fix ANY possible problems as they simply aren't allowed to. Upgrading SW is no different these days than doing any other repairs. What Volvo does with this situation is no different than anyone else in that regard these days.
If dealer people could do any warranty repairs on any car w/o a customers complaint, there are people who can and will take advantage of a situation and it's because of that that these rules were created. It's the same if you take your car in for service when no longer in warranty, the dealer staff can't legally decide to fix anything they'ld like to w/o your written concent.
All that you or anyone else reading this has to do is just mention a problem and if you think it might be SW related, mention that too and if your dealer is good, keeps up with the latest info, etc, they'll check into it and DL the proper SW for your car. That's the way it is and shouldn't be a problem for anyone.