You guys are right: It is utterly idiotic to have a policy of locking topics that have been unnecessarily bumped. It does not send the topic back to the bottom of the pile; it does not punish or even inform the perpetrator; in short, it does nothing good whatsoever--and now we have a perfectly necessitated duplicate topic. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I guess I never realized it was a policy before. On the topic of bumping, though, the rule--as we've all heard many times before--is this: So long as you contribute something, it's okay. However, this rule is wrong. It's redundant: Every reply--regardless of how old the topic is--should contribute something. If it doesn't, it's spam. Under the current rules, we're basically saying spam is all right--so long as it's fresh, hot-off-the-grill spam. But put that same spam on a six-month old topic, and you've done something wrong. WTD.