Four pair just makes sense. Cat5 was purpose designed for extended data transmission but one of its selling points is it is backwards compatible - so to speak. You can wire a whole building with cat5 and then depending on how you break out the ends you can go voice or data or video. More pairs the better. Four pairs just means you can accomodate all the wiring standards, 568A, B, USOC etc plus it gives room to grow. Which BTW is what happened when POE came about. So I would disagree that the design goal was ripping off buyers. Maybe I am naive that the cable industry is devoid of conspiracies but this one doesn't get my spidey sense worked up.