In reply to:
IMO they would do better to just lower the retail price (since hardly anyone pays that anyways) and stop being perceived as ripping everyone off.
Agreed. Years ago, when I was scraping by and trying to teach myself the programs, languages & scripting I now use for a living, I never thought twice about going to a warez site or "borrowing" a copy of someone's software. I was never going to reach the point where I could get a decent job and afford to pay for legitimate copies of my own without getting free software to learn and train on. And now I do buy everything legitimately, and I wouldn't consider pirated copies. But I find it absolutely galling that when I upgrade my motherboard and hard drive in a month or two, I'm going to have to scream and plead with Microsoft to allow me to reinstall
MY OWN $200 copy of XP Pro. There has to be some sort of reasonable middle ground, and it looks like we're moving farther and farther away from it.
