Another thing that colors my perspective - I have been on my own for 15 years. I don't have to consider the company, legacy or other devs in the shop. It is me, whom I choose to sub-contract to and what jobs I choose to take on. There is a level of freedom in that I often take for granted.

Right and as an independent dev Xamarin makes a mertic SHIT ton of sense, though once Ruby Motion has Android I'd argue that is a way better value. But as a guy working a day job hoping to bootstrap a startup/indie game on my nights and weekends $600-$2000 is ALOT of dough to drop, Ruby motion is $200 and I can swing that without much of a second thought, honestly I could swing $600-$2000 is within my range also I mean I'm extremely lucky in my salary compared to the rest of the world but it's A LOT harder to justify on top of a $3000 macbook pro retina, an intellij license, and the rest of my day used dev tools. Not trying to attack you on your stance I just would love Xamarin to rearrange their pricing to something that makes sense for different markets. I know that $20 a month plus 15-20% of app profits or something more flexible may make them much more popular with certain crowds.