As someone with no particular experience other than backing a few Kickstarter projects, app.net, and Star Citizen, I like the uniform visual layout, structure (regular updates by email, money is always refunded if the project isn't funded), and regulation (no possibly misleading renderings of hardware) of Kickstarter: it increases my confidence in something inherently full of uncertainty. But I don't know how much of that is real benefit and how much is merely emotional. At least Kickstarter would have prevented robertsspaceindustries.com from falling over from load yesterday was harmful, and it wouldn't have allowed them to have "refund if not funded" unchecked by default...