Correct, this is exactly what has been killing adsense lately. In the long run it hurts both publishers and advertisers as well as google because when publishers aren't making dick with adsense they will remove it and look for other methods to monetize their site websites, that means less traffic sources via google adwords for us.
Exactly, that makes me wonder what Google is thinking. Maybe they are jumping on the Yahoo bandwagon? It's not like limiting the clickable area provides a better user experience...