It amazes me that people whine about having to jump through a few hoops to get FREE samples. Come on! Stop by a McDonalds next time your out and ask the kid at the counter for a free sample of a Big Mac. Having to answer a few questions, or explain what your application for the part is is nothing compared to what the chip maker is spending.
Suppose you ask for a sample of a $5.00 part from Maxim. You might think you got a free $5.00 part and you'd be wrong. You got someone to sit there, review your request, and enter an order for you (a buck or two), you got the shipping box, the packaging, the tape and the label (another buck or two), you got a guy to pull your request, go find the part in the warehouse, break a rail of parts to get your single chip, and the pack the whole thing up (surely another few dollars), you got them to ship it to you (another few bucks and getting higher every day), and then you got your part ($5.00). Some years ago a sales manager at Motorola told me that the overhead cost to process a free sample was $35 on average, PLUS the cost of the part.
What really surprises me is that in the current economy, and with the costs of fuel and shipping, and any of them are still sending "free" samples to people not working on "real applications" for fortune-500 companies.