On the flip side, anyone who has personally imported new Sterns to bypass the domestic monopoly would be wise not to enter any details of that machine into a publicly accessible database or they might find that their overseas supplier has suddenly and mysteriously been removed as a Stern distributor!

Never thought of it that way!  The iron grip of the distributors is felt here in Canada, too.  Someone from our local Canadian community boasted about buying a Refinery Edition of the Walking Dead LE.  The Refinery guys are from the US.  It got back to the lone Canadian distributor for Ontario/Quebec who saw it as a loss of a sale.  They contacted Stern, who in turn contacted the Refinery guys, who in turn contacted the buyer and told him that Stern prohibited them from selling the game to someone across the border.  Stern may care more than you think.