Yeah, no.
The distributor even told West 6th that they were too similar YEARS ago. Can you imagine if someone did something similar to Coke or Pepsi? I'm not often going to side with magic hat (because they're beer is shitty, especially #9), but they aren't in the wrong on this. The more you read about it (especially the reddit AMA from the west 6th dude) the less it seems like it was Magic hat oppressing the little guy and more a "strategy" West Sixth employed to get some publicity.
edit: as far as the south and beer... Ashville NC (spelling, I know, fuckoff) is becoming the east-coastish mecca of beer with the larger craft breweries expanding there and (one of my favorites) Cigar City from FL is pretty damn good with Hunapa and Jai-Lai. Though JaiLai is basically a clone of Furious, I can dig that for the market. Next time I'm down there for an extended period I think I'm just gonna get a keg of Jai-Lai.