I recently tried to start a discussion on my blog, http://mywordpress.com/why-do-we-make-wordpress-admin-widgets/, about the same subject, and the few reactions vary. The contact e-mails I've received varied quite a bit as well.

I don't want to go down the road some developers do, by requiring signing up to their newsletter to even activate their plugin. That seems overly excessive for something they are releasing for free.