Some interesting stuff in the current MacUpdate promo bundle at $64.99:
Typinator
Leap
Hazel
StoryMill
Art Text
DVDRemaster Pro
MenuCalendarClock
WhatSize (first 3500 only)
Sound Studio (locked)
BannerZest (locked)
Parallels Desktop (locked)
Typinator is terrific and very useful with Scrivener. Add Leap and Hazel and the bundle is already pretty good value IMO. If all apps are unlocked it will be a steal.
StoryMill seems nice enough but won’t see much use on my machine (guess why!)
I bought the last MacHeist…several apps from there have become ‘every day’ apps for me. Bundles can be a great deal 
However, I’m a bit leery of MacUpdate promos - from what I recall they often include ‘non-upgradeable’ licenses to the apps (unlike MacHeist, which stipulates that all apps in the bundle must be full versions), meaning you have to pay full price for the next version when it’s released.
Good point. I haven’t read the individual licenses, but the mupromo.com web site says:
Sound Studio is now unlocked, and it looks like BannerZest will be unlocked soon.
My biggest concerns with these bundles is the pittance the developers get from the sales.
If a developer (especially indie developers like Keith) have gone to the trouble to write an app that is good enough to become part of your regular work flow, I would much rather pay them for it directly, than pay for a bundle full of apps I never use, and where most of the profits goes to the resellers (MacHeist, MacUpdate) rather than the guy who did all the work.
Matt
Yah, I saw that after I posted. Good to hear!
I’m not really sure that’s a big problem, to be honest. When I purchase a bundle, my general rule is 'I have to REALLY want at least two of the apps. Generally that means I’m buying two applications for less than the price it would normally cost to buy them separately - but it ALSO means that I’m buying 8 or so MORE apps that I would not have normally purchased.
Of course since I now have these apps I try them out…and often they become ‘every day’ apps for me. A good example would be Speed Download. Before getting that in the last MacHeist I would never have really considered paying money for it - it’s ‘just a downloader’ after all. Then I used it, and it was great! Not only could I resume and redownload a complete history of everything I’ve ever used before, but I could also use it as a pretty good FTP and WebDAV app. So guess what? When SD5 was released, I bought the upgrade.
That essentially means that YazSoft gained a new customer that they’d never have got through traditional means of marketing…they made less on the initial sale (but even that adds up, when you consider many of the people wouldn’t have bought the app otherwise)…and then they had a repeat customer who buys upgrades.
I don’t want to downplay the efforts of indy developers - because they are monumental and excellent - but I think it’s short-sighted to believe that the resellers didn’t do any of the work. Marketing is a difficult thing, especially when your interest is developing cool software, and the bundle scene is essentially a group of hard-working marketers who are only interested in pushing the fruits of the indy dev efforts. MacHeist takes a phenomenal amount of effort to get right, and guess what…the devs who have taken part once often agree to do it again. Because it almost always means more money in their pockets.
That being said, Keith has made some good points as to why some devs won’t benefit much from bundles. Scrivener, being a one-man team, doesn’t have the resources to support thousands of new users who didn’t buy Scrivener because it ‘clicked’ with them, and therefore come angrily to the forums wondering why Keith ‘didn’t bother to put pagination in’. The extra money that would come in through bundle sales wouldn’t be worth the stress. Scriv is a labour of love first, after all (this I infer from the fact that Keith still teaches during the day).
I agree with you regarding the value of a bundle - if you use 2 or more apps, you will probably have saved money even if you wipe the other ones.
My concern for the developers perspective is just how much they get paid. I know it is something they agree to and arguably better than nothing, and provided they get a percentage of the sales, it is a good deal for them.
My concern is with some of the reports (admittedly not necessarily reliable, it is hard to tell) about people being paid a flat amount in the vicinity of $5k-$15k, and then the sales going well beyond six digits and then some.
As a developer taking part, I would want to see a breakdown of where the profits go (what other developers are getting, how much goes to the marketers, how much on the marketing itself etc.) before signing up. I suspect the bundlers would keep that information confidential.
Matt