I'm not sure what your point or quandry is, but I'll give my 2 cents worth. Perhaps the question regarding offering items for free or for sale boils down to the artist personality, and point of view. I have used several wonderful freebie utilities that I am puzzled as to why they are offered for free. They are of such caliber that the creator could have made a fair amount of money if they had sold them. But that certainly is a personal choice. For me selling items is half the fun. It's very exciting and fullfilling to launch a new product and see the sales take off. Selling items places a value on them, when items sell it tells you the creator or artist that your work is good enough that people will spend money for them. That is very gratifying. When you want to share your work with others selling it as opposed to giving it away creates a whole new deminsion and I think a feeling of accomplishment.

As far as the artist cost are concerened, I have spent thousands of dollars on software and hardware, $2300 on a computer I built, $550 for a Asus Pro Art calibrated monitor, Adobe Creative Suite, Poser Pro 2012, Carrera 8 Pro, ZBrush, Pen tablet, it all adds up. I can spend months working on a project that I intend to sell. I am currently finishing up a project I've been working on for 3 years. So even if you do sell it your still basically giving it away considering your investment in time and equipment. I occasionally see where people complain about the cost of items, If they had any idea how much work and time goes into creating these things, they would blush at their ignorance. I do see many examples of items for sale that are nothing more than a few turns of the dials and a skin texture that someone else made, That in my opinion is not art and not talent. It is doing the bare minimum to throw something together and see if it sells. But at the end of the day art and creativity is a highly personal endever, its part of you, what you do with it is entirely your choice. Selling items does push you to get better, to improve your knowledge and skills. Sales dollars gives you a real tangible measuring stick and you might just make a little extra money on the side.