While I agree that it's more a minor annoyance than a dealbreaker (for me at least), the fact remains that there's a big difference between including a simple game or two and installing (or "suggestive-selling") a "freemium" money-sink from a third party.
Basically the way I look at it in order of annoyance/offensiveness:
- Free, standalone application made by same company (this is a free gift as far as I'm concerned)
- Free, standalone application made by another company (ok, this is starting to approach crapware but as long as it can be uninstalled and doesn't try to sell me anything, I'll deal)
- Link, installer, or preinstalled application that requires later purchase from same company (OK, this is an ad and pretty offensive)
- Link, installer, or preinstalled application requiring later purchase from third party (this is most certainly unwanted crapware that they were paid to include)