Yes Matt, I see what you mean. However, with regards to making calls there seems to be the simple reasoning of "There's no such thing as a free lunch". I do suspect that alot of people still believe that everything on the net should be/is free. I personally do not mind paying a small fee to these companies as they are providing a good service for me and it costs money to maintain these things, just as your standard telcomms provider has to do too. Admittedly, I do believe that our standard telecomms providers are starting to take us for a ride especially with all these new restrictions on domestic "unlimited call packages" that in essence mean you can have a free call up to 1 hour!
I do completely agree with you on the point that Vonage are making a huge mistake by not allowing you to use other equipment you may own to try out their service. They are missing out on alot of potential customers. Alot of the voip forums/newsgroups hardly mention Vonage probably for that very reason and people do not warm to companies who impose restrictions.