I love Xbox live, and don't really feel the $50 a year on my wallet, so I totally think it's worth the money. They keep adding new features to them (although they seem to be copying Nintendo and Sony it seems) so I don't mind at all.
I say they seperate the online gaming functionality of individual games from Xbox Live Gold.. make it a silver thing. Keep the Gold membership for people who like all that extra crap.
I would use it if it were free, but I'm not going to pay for something I use about twice per year. I am happy with Silver, so long as I can get DLC I'm good.