Should experts in TCS charge money to read proofs that P != NP?
I have some "real-world experience" in this nascent industry (and no, I'm not talking about my $200,000 offer to Deolalikar :-) )

In January, a software developer emailed me that he had an attempted proof of P&ne;NP, and that while he was almost sure there was an error, he couldn't find it.  He asked if I knew any grad students who'd be willing to find the error for him in exchange for a few hundred dollars.

To give you some context: I get a proof of either P&ne;NP or P=NP in my inbox roughly once per month.  Many of these emails go to a long list of complexity theorists (Cook, Karp, Fortnow, Sipser...); they often include religious or metaphysical ruminations as well as dark hints about academic conspiracies.  (In one case, there were graphic death threats against me, which led to my contacting the police.)  Virtually none of them acknowledge any possibility that the proof might be wrong, or that the author might have misunderstood the question.  And when, back in grad school, I tried to correspond with the authors, I found all of them to be fervent believers in Churchill's maxim "never, never, never, never give up."

So the software developer's request really impressed me!  This was the first time I'd ever seen a P&ne;NP proof accompanied by this level of self-awareness---both about the imposition being made on people's time and (more importantly) about the likelihood of error.  As it happened, my PhD student Michael Forbes sent the author a beautiful, detailed report explaining the problems with his approach; the author thanked Michael and (I think! :-) ) paid up as promised.

So yes: for amateurs who want someone to examine their P vs. NP proofs (or similar work), I think paying a grad student a few hundred bucks is a great way to go.  (Note that grad students are a much better choice than professors: not only do they have more energy and enthusiasm for such things, they also need the money more.)  I wish more amateurs availed themselves of this option.