Am I the only one here who sees this as a typical ROW clearance and not a hack job? I just scanned down through this thread, but I didn't see where anyone addressed that, though treeseer touched on it. Most ROW jobs are done by regular city/county/state employees. Not that they're idiots, but they're not arborists. They cut trees for powerline clearance, not for aesthetics or longevity. It's the same way they have those helicopter saws that just thrash everything in their path. They're just cutting trees down away from powerlines. It doesn't make it any prettier, but that's just a fact of life, and you can't fault them for it. They aren't doing hack jobs, they're just doing their jobs. They probably went and filled in some pot holes after they were done with this tree.
Now if this was done by a professional arbo, well then yeah, it looks pretty crappy.
Jeff