It takes time and skill to write a good stable and efficient miner. I have absolutely no problem with paying someone for their time to do this and release it publicly.

Would you prefer people with these skills to create private miners so only they capitalise? Or perhaps have some steep upfront fee?

If a miner works well, is stable and gives me a consistent hash rate it will automatically be a few % faster than a buggy one that needs to be restarted constantly. If there are tweaks and enhancements to give me a greater hash rate - so much the better. If I share a percentage of these additional gains with the developer as a way of paying for his/her time - I'm more than happy with that.

If the dev fee erodes the improvement and means that it becomes less efficient for me to use than other miners, then clearly I won't use it - that's my choice and something the miner developer should take in to account. All of you have the same choice so I don't understand what all this complaining is about