megwrites

I think that one of the things that contributes to the animosity against agents is unpublished writers seeing agents primarily as a gatekeeper for publishing houses. Which I suppose is a natural way to think of agents when you're still trying to get one, or trying to get a book deal. But my agent did a lot of awesome stuff in negotiating my contract, fighting for the cover that had my name in the middle instead of the bottom corner, etc, and -- my experiences with my publisher have been 99.5% positive, but for writers who haven't had that experience, an agent helps a lot to lubricate the friction. (I know one writer who was waiting for ten months for revisions because her agent dropped the ball on that...)

Even if all publishers allowed unagented submissions, I wouldn't want to be without an agent any more than I'd want to go to court without a lawyer...