I personally have no issue with him making the thread and making it a sticky. For GPU mining, my coding skills are about .1 on a 100 scale. So if he gets some donations and gets a card, no sweat off my sack.
Maybe he should keep track of who sends donations, and give them a preview of his optimized card before releasing it to the public.
I'd have zero problems with that, too. While I currently use guiminer, it's only because it was the first one I downloaded, and I don't have the time to "learn" a new miner just yet, but would gladly give his miner a look-see when I get my 7970.
No one is being forced to send a donation, no one is being forced to use/pay for his software.