Kafkaesque Block of Attempt to Use Previous Version of Flash

The latest version (23) of Flash seems incompatible with my Safari 5 browser.  In particular, my favorite browser game now causes my OS (10.6.8) to crash so hard that everything locks up and requires a cold reboot.

So jumped through all the necessary hoops to uninstall Flash 23 and reinstall Flash 22 for Mac.  But as soon as I fired up the old computer again I got this nasty, authoritarian message from Adobe:

"The version of Adobe Flash Player on your system does not include the latest security updates and has been blocked."

What is the point of providing previous versions of Flash if Adobe is going to block them??  I have nothing but disgust for people who corner part of the computer market, making their software indispensable, and then abuse that power.

Is there a way around this obnoxious Adobe blocking?  Is there an anti-corporate-prick patch?