This is the kind of thing I complain about often. I've seen it so many times, and died more each time. But usually when I try to tell people who've never seen this happen, they flatly refuse to believe me it happens.
I hear claims like "There's little 2nd hand test equipment in Australia, because it's such a small market." No, there's little 2nd hand test equipment in Australia because here the regulations and structures that ensure all 'depreciated' equipment is destroyed, have fewer loopholes and are more strongly enforced than in most places.
I agree with the comment that when you see this happening, there's only one rational, moral response. Do whatever you can to save the equipment. Including stealing it. By any means.
The financial frameworks in this world are mostly evil. Claiming "our book keeping methods say this equipment's value is zero, and so we can't even give it away because that implies it has value, so it has to be destroyed..." - that's evil. I would happily violently kill such people, if I could get away with it. They deserve to die. The whole system that produces such insanity deserves to die.
It's also commonly the case that there are 'no photographs' rules in place, where equipment is being stockpiled for destruction. Never mind whatever bullshit reasons are given, the real reason is that the people in charge of such immoral acts don't wish any risk of public exposure.
So, what you should do, when you find an example of this immoral destruction, is definitely take photos. Then scrub the EXIF (camera ID) data from your photos (for eg using Irfanview), and publish them anonymously. Complete with names of those responsible, the company name and address, and whatever details you can get of exactly what is being destroyed and the (bogus) reasons claimed. Also the destination of the shipment, where it's supposed to be destroyed. Trucking company name, numberplates, etc. Everything.
We have the Internet. It's a powerful tool for fighting such secret evils. F*cking USE it!
I'd suggest eevblog forum should add a 'Wanton Destruction Hall of Infamy' category, except I know it would never happen. Dave's sponsors (HP, Tek, etc) would immediately call him up and explain how inappropriate that was, and there'd be no more demo equipment loans till he put a stop to it.
Funniest story I have in this category: Long long ago (well past statute of limitations!) I was associated with some people who ran various kinds of arcade games. This was in the days of laser video disks. They imported a bunch of laser disk players for 'cut scene' video in one of their games. Paid a lot of money in import duty. The disk players turned out to not be suitable. Accountants inform them they can recover their import duty from the government, if they have the disk players bulldozed in the presence of a tax inspector who will note serial numbers, etc. So I (being a nice guy and owed a favor by my employer) get a phone call the day before Christmas. "Hey, this is horrible, but we have to destroy those laser disk players. In a few days. If you like I can bring them round to your place now, and pick them up again Boxing day. No one is ever going to open them up and look inside. Do you have some bricks handy? These players contain a lot of nice stuff including HeNe lasers; so long as the units seem about the right weight it will all be good."
So I spent Christmas eve gutting about 20 laser disk players and replacing the guts with bricks.
I've seen countless other examples, most with tragic and entirely humorless end results. it's one of the reasons I 'retired' early. I simply couldn't bear being associated with such an evil system any more.