The App Store and Legacy Purchased Apps
I've been playing with the Apple App Store a bit today and I'm really surprised at the number of apps that I use that it contains. I mean really surprised. The problem is that most of them are detected as "Installed", but if the Bundle IDs are different, as it is with MarsEdit and TextWrangler, then it's not. But in the short-run, it'd be better to have them all not recognized. Basically, if the Bundle ID exists, and it's not in the "Purchased" list, then it should be tagged as "Grandfather" or something. It's on the box, but it's not really recognized properly and won't be updated, etc.
This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with the App Store: the inability to "import" or "register" purchased apps with the App Store so as to "fold them in" to the App Store umbrella. They could do this with a quick serial number check, or a service that Apple provides that checks to see if it's really licensed to a person... something. They really should try to fold in all the legacy folks.
But I'm guessing that they look at this as a transient condition. The next major release of any one of these apps puts me in the position to buy it from the App Store. No upgrade pricing, however, as I'm not "upgrading". But it's probably in their mind that this is transient, and will be a slight grumbling for a little while and then die down.
Maybe... but all the apps I have provide upgrade pricing, so it's not in my best interests now to buy them new. I would like to think they'd figure this out.