Free or commercial?

Last October 17th I was invited to talk at a (rather specialized) chemistry workshop. My talk was about the status of current chemistry visualization tools.

The majority of the audience agreed that was a "provocative talk". And this was exactly my intent.

But a person from a commercial company (producer of various software for chemistry) disagreed. His statement was: "If you pay nothing, you deserve what you are getting". That means usability problems, standard functionalities, etc.

I disagree, also if I find some logic in the argument.

But what do you think? Is it correct to equate free to quick-and-dirty? Is the condition of chem viz software desperate with no evolution possible?