Ok, here is my thinking on this.
Every program has console and console free, well 99% do, and if they don't they should. Heres the argument.
In this day and age with every single solitary mechanism for browsing the web having popup blockers that are pretty damn effective (numerous toolbars, googlebar, yahoobar, internet explorer built in, mozilla built in, many antivirus like norton, mcafee, kapersky), aren't the people that don't want pop ups pretty much not getting them anyhow?
In other words, why turn down that extra 5 bucks, or 10 in some cases when the software market by default is going to stop them anyhow for the people that are so pissy about consoles?
My machine lately is so protected by default that I can't even get consoles when I want to see them to check them out, I have to go to one of the other machines here in the office that is less protected and maybe turn off one blocker or two.
I think that the software companies have sales angled the pop up nuisance thing so well in marketing and selling their software that consoles are less and less effective everyday, even with people writing around them every day.
I'm not a daisy chaining console freak, but one or two are ok in my book, even three if the third is just a halfpage ad framed or something.
What are your thoughts on this? Take the extra 5 or 10 bucks and let the software companies sort em out through the browsers, security suites, and toolbars, which most are doing by default, or go console free and just fel a little better that you're not dinging the surfer with a pop up or 20?
