I work in this industry, and every early devkit device we've received from the manufacturer has come with these kinds of constraints for us. I would have been much more shocked if Magic Leap didn't require these kinds of things of its early devkit recipients. And I'm a big ML skeptic.
There were significant restrictions and weird PR "no go" topics with the Hololens as it was being developed. For a long time they didn't even allow photography of the physical hololens (as it was still in flux).
Why can't it be a legitimate concern, where they want to maximize the amount of development time before their competitors get their hands on them and start reverse engineering? This isn't a lightly modified PC meant to run games, this is whole new tech that could spawn a potentially huge new market if it turns out to be good. There's a lot at stake.
We have this amazing pin-drop blood testing device. But no releasing papers for peer review is too risky. It's too revolutionary! No, don't ask us how it works, we don't even reveal it to family it's that amazing.
Theranos was able to fool people by not allowing their system into 3rd party hands and doing all of the tests behind closed doors, mostly using 3rd party existing industry machines.
I don't see how that analogy applies here when the entire device is being given to actual companies and with restrictions merely because Magic Leap wants to control the full PR experience when the product launches.
That PR will come out in some fashion in the near future, and it won't require a whistleblower within the company to leak it and risk losing their jobs.
I can understand the case with videogames, for pre-release dev kits, but maybe it's too much as well.