That would require the person doing the kickstarter to commit time to the project. I get the impression from most of these software-development kickstarters that the goal is to get payment in advance of the dev work.

Isn't that what raising VC money is all about? What's wrong with raising money for something you're going to spend several months on?

It goes against the original spirit of kickstarter.

Although it was targeted towards hardware products, I think similar guidelines should be in place for software: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

"Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future. Products can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development."

And this makes sense in light of true software development: 10% of the time is spent building the rough prototype and 90% of the time is spent refining. And oftentimes the development money is useful for the tedium like tests and validation,.

+1