I think that the problem goes all the way down to philosophical principles. On a high level, it's capitalism vs more socialistic views of the world. Are you better off with idealistic stuff produced for 'free' by idealists, or are you better off with something that's making money for somebody? I think you're going to get better quality in the long run when somebody's career is based on the product working correctly and meeting the needs of the purchaser and the market. This doesn't make products based on capitalistic principles perfect (of course!) but it answers business questions like:

-Are the people who make this product going to be around for a long time?

-Is there a large pool of people who know how to make it work?

-Does the product function to strict standards as opposed to variations introduced by every user?

Businesses are usually better off making the investment in products with a support structure, even if times are lean right now. Better to do things that Steve is suggesting like putting off an upgrade or increasing hardware-replacement cycles than moving your whole operation to software that may not be around in a few years.

P.S. This is why Microsoft needs to stress quality, performance, and support over new features. We're paying for stuff that's supposed to work. Free stuff starts looking very attractive when expensive stuff is perceived as having low quality. And please stop making changes in the interface just for change sake - it's scaring people away...