But it is if their target demographic for Xbox One are people who will be able to check in once every 42 hours. If not, then they're not expecting you to purchase Xbox One, but rather to remain and/or become a loyal XBox 360 customer.

: The hobby of gaming is deeply rooted in constant progression. I don't mean
: leveling up, I mean advancement of technology. New graphics cards, more
: RAM, better physics engines, all that. The console iterations are the
: gateway which allows a lot of gamers to interact with this progression.
: When you tell someone "Sorry you don't like it, but you can have a
: 360 to play on," you're saying "I know you've been a part of
: this constant progression for most of your life, but this new generation
: isn't for you. But you can still enjoy being in the past!"

Advancement necesarrily means leaving some things behind. Otherwise you're just patchworking improvements until the product becomes a big mess, just to keep past people happy who don't want to progress themselves. It happens everywhere, from software to hardware, and most definitely in the gaming community. It's not new. It shouldn't be taken as an insult. But obviously it is, and it's something Microsoft has to deal with (or ignore, if it's what they were prepared to deal with)

: Despite
: all the attempts to make them identical, desktops and consoles are not the
: same. I can avoid upgrading my graphics card for some time and still not
: miss out on new releases

"for some time"
I have had to deal with not being able to play games on my machine (which is still fully capable of running everything else I do, and updated to Windows 7) for years now. I've been "cut off" from enjoying PC gaming by companies who require higher minimum specs to run their software. Am I insulted? Of course not. They wanted to push their software forward, which necessarily required abandoning old/incapable technology. It happens at some point, sooner or later. Microsoft decided to make that happen with this iteration - but even so, they are retaining their gaming-focused hardware alongside the non-gaming-focused hardware. The only group left out are, as you described, those who want "the newest-generation Xbox gaming hardware" - which doesn't exist.

: but if I don't get an XBOX One, I am completely
: cut off from new games. This isn't good for anyone involved.

You're completely cut off from new games which developers have chosen to create making use of XBO features not available on 360. Is that MS to blame? Or is that just developers trying to move forward? If they want non-online gamers to play their games, they'll make sure it's available on the 360 or PS4 or whatever platform they feel will do their game justice. Gamers need to get past this 'entitlement' to the latest-greatest.
Whether MS's business decision will be successful or not, or push people forward to adopting broadband or digital-only services (necessarily prompting online checks given the software model balance for users and developers), remains to be seen. It's not looking good at the moment, but arguably only due to bad PR decisions. Hey, Beta and HDDVD went the same way. Superior tech at the time, but competition marketed more successfully.

: We want to be eager about the new XBOX. We want it
: to be something we can like and enjoy, and we don't want to be treated
: like peasants for it.

Vote with your wallet if you don't like it.
Plenty are voting with their wallet that they do.
Xbox One is not a direct successor to the 360. They will exist side by side. Complementary. One is purely gaming, one is digital-focused gaming and entertainment with regular online access a necessity.
If you want fruit but you don't want the apples, you can always stick with the oranges.