I still don't understand why the Studiopress model of licensing the product as GPL but charging for downloads and support is apparently OK for themes but not for plugins.

Did it honestly not occur to anyone, when they were busy bribing commercial theme developers with the promise of official promotion in exchange for going GPL, that plugin developers might perceive this as preferential treatment? I know that the plugin guys didn't need to be bribed because their work is mostly GPL anyway, and they're not generally as commercially-orientated as designers, but if theme developers have the option of selling their work with the support of wordpress.org then so should plugin developers. It's only fair.

(Also, if Automattic are allowed to distribute freemium plugins/services through wordpress.org then everyone else should be allowed to as well, otherwise you have to expect occasional accusations of profiteering and hypocrisy.)