I read this the other day.
Made me tickle.
Linspire have their good and bad points.
Unfortunetly the latter outnumber the former.
Linspire has a very Windows-clone feel to it, which could be good in the transition from Windows-to-Linux.
But they had to spoil it with a proprietary, subscription based, packaging system
If someone made their own alternative to Click&Buy, and hacked Linspire to use this instead, im sure it would be a good first-distro for newbies.
But that's more trouble than it's worth.