The main difference is that not many of the companies started between 578 & 1851 were internet companies, which do tend to be very fickle...

I've never understood people's belief that they have the right to someone else's work be it music, videos, games, software or whatever. Calling EA an evil overlord for trying to profit from their work and protect it from being stolen is totally goofy. If you don't want to pay for it, you shouldn't have it. I'm sure people are going to trash this statement but if you don't like the DRM they install with it, don't buy it. But stealing a copy of something because you don't like the DRM is theft. Plain and simple.

I have to disagree about the amount of commercial extensions. I can meet about 95% of my client's needs with free extensions. And I also don't mind paying for some extensions that fulfill a need. In general, but not all cases, I feel I get a more robust extension and better support from the commercial ones. I'm actually more bummed about the large number of great, yet abandoned extensions out there.