Drew is right,, this thread got over blown from the original question to a great degree,,, however, I feel that some of the comparisons made on alternatives is valid to the original question...
But would like to add,,,,,,,
The price for Windows Software can be looked at fairly simply.
1. If you purchase retail,, you are paying for a full license to run on any (single) system you wish for as long as you wish, and is transferable to any other system, forever. .......................OEM does not carry that weight
2. Retail pricing for average users constitutes the making up of funds lost on all the special deals (promo's, students, piracy, OEM, basic support, continued development on SP and hotfixes, etc.)
3. MS are a software only company (98% atleast), they don't make near the money off hardware that they do off software
So if you don't fall into one of the above number 2 categorize and you do end up having to pay full price for retail, that is where your money is going to, plus the added benefits of any single system at a time license. It's simple economics. Business needs to make money, period. Regardless of profit. If you don't take in more than you spend on running the company you go out of business. That's why gov't can't make welfare type programs pay off in any way. They are not in the business of making money,, only taking what they can get.
So, MS may be a gagillion dollar business, people made them that way. We, the public consumer.
Want to make a comany go away? Stop buying their products. It is that simple.