It isn't such a terrible thing. Unlike corporations, which routinely withhold data generated in clinical trials, academic researchers must eventually publish their data, otherwise their careers will suffer.
I follow JAMA's publications and routinely ask / seek data from authors (politely). I've never once been sent or guided towards data. I asked Dr. Vivian Fonseca for the data associated with this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23218892 The text is free and you'll see he says on page 1, "the raw data are available from Pamlab LLC." I asked Pamlab for the data and they stonewalled. I asked Dr. Fonseca and he stonewalled. I asked the Journal and they said, "Not our job." And that's an article that says the data are available!
This is why it is so important to ensure data is deposited in an independent repository at time of publication. It is too easy to claim the data will be made available and then simply not do it, and there is little recourse.
It would be really worthwhile for the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors to hear your story, as they are proposing that authors should be allowed to withhold data for six months after publication. See my comment elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11019760
If you have access to PubMed Commons, I would post a comment warning others that the authors refused to make the data available despite promising to do so in the paper, and that people should treat the results with caution.
