one of the better reads I've found on landing pages - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/announcing-the-seomoz-landing-pag... and yeah they say they do work like gold I could just never bring myself to be so sleezy

sleezy cause I think the reason they work is that they get you to read for 30 minutes, then you don't want to feel like you are wasting that 30 minutes by not buying.

Writing a long-form sales letter that fully and narratively explains the benefits (especially emotional) that will accrue from the purchase and use of the product is not sleazy, it's smart.

Lying about those benefits is sleazy.

a huge portion of those pages is the customer testimonials, all of them are made up on the spot. I'd call that sleazy, wouldn't you?

The ones I've read aren't mostly testimonials -- but yes, making testimonials up is sleazy.

Though I never understand why. I think I might be different from their target audience but I have an immediate negative reaction to anything that looks like an ad.