Wasn't there an EU ruling a few years ago saying that cell phones needed to start using micro-usb connectors? How is Apple getting around that, and still selling phones in the EU with proprietary plugs?
You are misinformed. There may or may not be DRM according to the teardowns. There is certainly a bit of silicon which has a minimal DRM capability, but it may have come along for the ride. If there is DRM, it is not enforced. There are knockoff connectors out there.
The connector electronics are there to allow higher current charging by allocating more pins to power transfer when they are not needed for data and to allow as yet undeveloped higher speed protocols to operate on the same connector.
If there is DRM I can see Apple's point. When you destroy an iPhone with a cheap charger that fails, it costs Apple money to replace it. If you attempt to reverse engineer the connector, you will be wrong. The future capabilities are not present for observation. You will probably create a device that behaves improperly for future protocols. Will you destroy that future device by pulling -5V on a low voltage differential data line?
