Ah, a very interesting topic indeed. I am an outlier in the astronomy community in that I am not one who's blood boils at the concept of 'selling' stars. In fact I've done a deep dig on the topic, and I've found that the offers from the various entities range from 'selling' only bright stars such as those easily visible (think Big Dipper, etc.) to those like the International Star Registry who boast that they never 'resell' stars. This is why Astrogeek's is mag 11, and that was 20+ years ago. They are now deep in to the Hubble Guide Star catalog. There is no more opportunity for people to see 'their' star from ISR through an eyepiece, and as Steve has said, it now requires precision and deep imaging to show people their new property.
Here's why it doesn't piss me off; like Steve, I've encountered many people over the years of my involvement in the hobby who have come to me with 'their' star information, and I've yet to encounter even one person who has had a star 'bought' for them (or bought one for themselves) that considered it anything more than an interesting novelty. Not one. Every single person fully understood that what they were holding in their hands was nothing more than a piece of paper and that it was nothing more than an interesting curiosity. I've never had anybody espouse about their newly acquired status in the cosmos, scientific community, or official records. No one. Do some of the companies elude to including your name in an 'official registry'? Yes, they do. But I give people credit for having more intelligence than that. I'm confidant that they understand the 'officialness' has nothing to do with the scientific community, and again I've never had anyone hang their head in disappointment after learning that 'their' star is only recognized by them, and no one else. Thus, I don't see the practice of 'selling' stars as an act of preying on idiots. They're marketing novelties, and when I consider the things I've wasted money on in the course of my own life it would be an outrage for me to get outraged at them, and quite frankly when I consider that some of these companies have gotten rich from the practice, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't think of it myself.
And then there's the connection to the cosmos, as Steve had previously mentioned. I enjoy outreach and sharing the cosmos with people and interacting with them under the stars. The experience is generally a very positive one, far removed from the stress of the daily grind and people are delighted to 'escape' through the telescope, if even just for a moment. Several years ago we had a sub working in my department at the school, and when he learned about my affinity for the stars he mentioned that he and is wife, who had both recently retired from New Bedford HS, were gifted with a star in their name from their fellow staff members. He wanted to see their star, and so brought in an old rinky-dink dept. store refractor for me to show him how to use. We went through the motions, but we both knew that wasn't happening. I offered to take it to another level for him.
Manny and Mary's star was purchased through an entity called
Star Deed. This company's claim to uniqueness is that they only sell stars from the SAO catalog, thus the likelyhood of actually being able to to see the star through a scope is actually very high. Manny and Mary's was mag 7 - that's bino territory!
So I made copies of their Star Deed package, took it home, and got down to the business of bringing these people some joy. I put my DSLR on a little barn door tracker and took some exposures. I got enough good ones to work with - 7th mag isn't that deep. From the good exposures I made a personalized image of 'their' star for them (with the added liberty taken of brightening theirs just a little more than the surrounding stars - because that's exactly how their co-workers felt about them), and from that I made a chart that they could use with steadied binos to actually see it live. They're big into the RV scene and camp every summer down at Horseneck Beach, where surely on a clear and moonless night they could succeed on their own in seeing their star.
To say that Manny and Mary were thrilled with the outcome is an understatement. They were ecstatic, and that's what the practice is really all about to me. So what if it cost the buyers fifty or more dollars for the gift? When I see the BS on TV these days like wedding cakes that go for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars I can hardly be moved by such a relatively measly expenditure. Yeah, maybe the companies do hawk their wares like the creep on the corner with the trenchcoat full of watches, but it's them that has to live with that.
Steve, I'm in if you ever need help showing somebody "their" star. We'll promote that sucker like a spruced up only-driven-on-Sundays-by-a-little-old-lady used car!
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The image I made for Manny and Mary. Artistic liberty was applied in the form of "Supernova" filter to highlight the specific star.
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I'm confident that even a couple who have never plied the skies with anything more than their eyes could use this charts to eventually find their target in binoculars. Maybe. 
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
