Its understandable if you already have the console and the game, and its hooked up to your TV. But like I said, the VC service is mainly for those who are too lazy to connect their old consoles or don't want to look for the old games.
Going back to the topic, 2008 is perhaps going to offer the most interesting retrospective information yet. 2008 was both a great and a bad year for Nintendo. Great because their games and systems kept selling and broke records despite a very, very bleak economic outlook and tough competition. Bad because it seems that the divide between casual and core players was decided and from then on the argument would never die.
Can't wait to offer my thoughts on that!