Yeah, I know. But after having used it for a while, I would more than gladly pay the full $40. Plus, if the funding goes to create a more user friendly distro, that helps newbies get involved, why not? They can always move on to the free distros later.
And, for advanced users in general, they can FTP the components they need, if they wanted to.
Yeah, yeah, pain in the ass, I know.