Hi,
This is an becoming a very interesting discussion. Let me start by saying that I did not vote on the poll, as I found the options too much black and white. I do certainly not think that all good scenery should be payware, but it could be payware. If the author has spend a lot of time on it (and maybe money to buy stuff like aerial photos), then he can of course ask a compensation for it. And then it depends on the FS users to decide if that amount of money is fair for that product. But to say that all good addons must be payware goes much too far for me.
In general there are other reasons than money that made people start doing this. Of all of us this is a hobby, so the main reason is fun. And usually a money will cost you money and not earn you money. So I think the main reason behind most addons is that we love to do what we do. Either recreate our local airport as best as we can or create the plane we like.
Let me take the Netherlands 2000 project, in which I am involved. We choose to be (and remain) freeware with a few good reasons, even though we could certainly sell our end product. One of the reasons is that we are a rather big team, with about 15 people. When you add money to that, it can easily lead to problems. Not all members have the same amount of time to spend and each has its own specialities. So how would you split up the money in such a case? I am sure that would lead to arguments and reduce the amount of fun we now have in doing what we do.
An even better reason for us to remain freeware, is that the fact that we are doing it for nothing has given us a lot. We have received data for free, that would have costs thousands of euros otherwise. People are pleased to help us and now and then we get a special "reward" (like a visit to the KLM flight simulators or an old simulator we can play with in a museum). Most of this would never have been possible if we were a commercial product.
I think every designer should start with at least one freeware project. That is certainly the best way to learn the tricks. I hate the posts that you see now and then from people that say" "Hi, I want to design a new commercial scenery of this airport, how would I do something like that?".
I think the FS world would not be as nice as it is now, when everybody would try to make as much money as he can. Let's take this site as an example. Would it be worth visiting for you all, if I tried to make money from it? Asking money to be able to read the useful information or use the tools I create? I don't think so.
So to summarize this all. I am not saying that payware is bad (I have been involved in a few payware projects myself as well), but I believe freeware should remain more important, as that is an integral part of the fun we get from this hobby.
PS. I think Bob makes a good point there, I don't believe MS has much better tools. The main reason for this is that they design different kind of sceneries. They do not attempt to make it as detailed as we want, they need to make a default scenery that is good enough for the entire world.