It let a lot more people have one, which is good, but it also let a lot more people have one that shouldn't.

Okay I agree with this statement except the second part, which is really elitist. A lot of the newbies that got Empegs in the fire sale have become knowledgable about Linux when they would have never had the chance to otherwise. I think more empegs in more peoples' hands is a good thing, and saying that they shouldn't have them because they somehow lack the technical knowledge to use it doesn't sit right with me.

The only part that bothered me was that I paid $1599 and $699 for my empegs and people were getting them for $200.

But just as in this example, having more people using a non-Microsoft OS is a good thing. Just because they're not grizzled old veterans of another more traditional UNIX flavor doesn't mean they should be denied the opportunity to pick it up and learn it. So yeah, some of them are going to write bad code and release it to the community. But if you have dealt with Sun's support people like I have (especially with iPlanet Web Server issues) you begin to realize that Sun has its own share of unskilled developers. Can't blame Linux for that.