My year as a Microsoft MVP and the 7 reasons Microsoft need to fix their "MVP" program | Windows 8 News | Windows 8 Forums

I am also an MVP. I am surprised at your blog. perhaps you misuderstood what the small "status "of MVP really meant?

It made few promises and,in my case anyway, those few have been fulfilled.

"We seek to recognize the best and brightest from
technology communities around the world with the Microsoft® Most
Valuable Professional (MVP) Award.

These exceptional community
leaders come from a wide range of backgrounds. They are teachers,
artists, doctors, engineers, as well as technologists, who actively
share their high-quality, real-world technical expertise with the
community and with Microsoft.

With the MVP Award, we thank these
inspiring individuals for representing the voice of thousands in the
community through the powerful and independent feedback they give us,
and for helping our customers maximize the potential of their software."

Awesome? I think not. They are congratulating you on your efforts to help customers. Yes. So they get it for free from many sources. That is the nature of enthusiasm. 

"Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2010
Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical
community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world
expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in
Windows Desktop Experience technical communities during the past year."

 

Again, no implied offers there, other than recognition of your services to the community

 

"Even more awesome! The award looked nice and came with a plaque and a
very cool looking trophy thing. In addition, there were lots of cool
NDA type forms to sign. I felt really good now. I was signing NDA's, I
was going to be learning stuff."

Cheap and free, but nice to look at in self admiration.

"What was (yet) even more awesome was the Technet subscription for 1 year. Very nice! Looking good so far."

Well, I came a year after you but I was given that and the msn package. I could not have afforded both on my own so it was received with gratitude. It gave me the opportunity, particularly with early Beta and Rtm releases, to stay ahead on the forums and continue to offer advanced help to the needy, This is something I take pleasure from, without expected compensation.

I doubt it is an important program from Microsoft. This alone, gives me even more satisfaction that my hours spent helping others have had an ackowledgement drom the principal. I did not ask for the award, it came out of the blue, obviously on recomendation from someone.