Linspire is not my favourite either, but they have made a simple and valid commercial model which is right now the only linux you buy preinstalled, not ideal in any stretch, and yes they support wine and a few other os projects too. and they click and run has made a lot of friends. the fact they are making money and enemies, is helping with IMAGE , Yes i agree on novell, Suse and Ximian makes a great base to build from, and IBM have given heaps, but mandrake and lindows are the commercial ones that get the scrutiny in ny neck of the woods, and so far its good news. BTW the Munich tender went suse and the Paris City contract went Mandrake, so the IMAGE in the commercial world is getting a lot more attention. Nowdays when I tell a client we use an embedded linux, they just ask about support and do their people need to know anything about config, once I show them a web interface, they aren't interested in the os. so things are better than they were 3 years ago.
Linspire give me an awfully bad aftertaste, not the least because they're charging money for services to which they add no value and which users of their distro can get gratis.
By default the distro also logs the user in as root -- without even telling the user that something different is possible, let alone desirable.