It does seem like there would be a catch sometimes, but there isn't. Although, I do read through the comments to get an idea of how other people liked it and what issues they had. Sometimes they'll even point the way to an open source/free program that does the job better.

The only real drawback beside the support/update issue you mentioned is that if you have to reinstall everything, you're out of luck with these. But still, if you ever wanted to try some of these programs this is the best way to get them.