I do get exteremely frustrated by the riduculously high cost of some software to home end users as opposed to business users.
I wish more companies would follow the idea that Computer Associates had with Supercalc all those years ago - pile it high and sell it cheap. There is lots of software that I occasionally need, but to pay $200 or more for something that I might only need to use once or twice a year is a ridiculous ratio.
The invevitable result is that many people either end up with second rate software, less user friendly open source offerings or, more likely, a pirated version of what they really need.
For example i could use adobe premiere for the few digital videos that I shoot for fun. If it were say $10 to hire a 30 day full version whenever I needed. That I would go for, but $299 or more for something that will need upgrading in a year - i think not. I recall once looking for software to recover data from a repartitioned and reformatted drive - it's price was over $2,000 to buy - not a chance! - however the nice company leased it to me for 3 days for about $30 which meant I could perform what for me was a one off need.
If I only wanted to drive my car three or four weekends a year I would simply hire one, not pay a huge sum to have it sit in the drive!
So come on companies how about some low cost short term leasing options so we can all use whatever software we need, just when we need it, at an affordable price - you aint getting money from us now anyway so $10 a pop is extra cash for you! go fo it. Its a bit like the poster's request to renew trial periods - but legally!!