Extended Fraud Alert?

[calyx]

I came home tonight to a bevy of correspondance from the EQ, EX, and TU.
Apparently Equifax placed an Extended Fraud Alert on my file and requested it on my behalf to the other CRAs.
I think I know why this happened, but I never requested it even though their letter starts "As you requested."

Per EQ:
"An extended fraud alert can be placed if you are a victim of fraud or identity theft. It requires a copy of a valid police or law enforcement agency report, or a Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Report. An extended fraud alert is similar to an initial fraud alert, but lasts for 7 years. With an extended fraud alert, a lender or creditor is required to verify your identity in person or by phone at a number you provide before opening new accounts or making changes to existing accounts."

I did have a fraudulent account on my reports that I had removed last year which resulted in an initial fraud alert on my files, and I spoke to EQ last week on the phone (they called me) about an unauthorized access to my credit file (before the fraudulent account, btw).  We also discussed security and credit monitoring (as in, they asked me if I was doing anything to watch my credit reports, which I confirmed) but I never requested an extended alert, nor did I file a police report or anything of the sort, nor did they mention they were going to do this.

A few questions for the great fount of knowledge here:
Is this something they just do now if they feel like there are or might be subsequent issues, regardless of the presence of a report (a new policy)?
And is there any point in keeping this alert on file instead of just freezing my reports myself?  If freezing the report is easier to control I'd just do that instead.
Will this cause any difficulty when trying to apply for new credit?   I had no issues with the initial fraud alert - the credit card companies just called or sent mail to verify that I had placed the app, which I'm fine with, but if this makes things stricter, that'd be annoying (7 years is a long time).
Will this make disputes or requests with the CRAs any more difficult?  I'm still cleaning up a few things and I was hoping to pester EX & TU for Early Exclusions.

I suppose the extra free credit reports are nice, if you need them, but kind of unnecessary - everything's online, anyway.
And my questions are predicated under the assumption that the extended fraud alert is fairly easy to remove (as in, I just contact them either by phone or mail with proper proof of who I am and ask for removal - please tell me it's not any harder than that!).