Are we sometimes a bit too precious?

The fact that agents will actually hear you out at conferences -- which many authors cannot afford to attend -- is increasingly hacking me off. I'm unagented now, by my choice, and I find I feel freer to do/write what I like, and go to bed happier at the end of the day. But that's just me. If I do go to my main conference this year, I'd love to ask an agent, "Would you listen to my pitch for this same project via snail or e-mail if I wasn't sitting in your face? And would I actually get a 'no-thanks' in lieu of total silence as a reply?"

But my current plan is not to go this year. It's the wrong year for me to go, since I have nothing pitch-ready and everything that's finished is already contracted. And I don't think it's right at my stage to be deliberately provocative.

It's falling in line with many other areas of endeavor nowadays -- them who has, gets. I detest the idea that able writers with interesting ideas cannot get them across to the reader due to mere lack of money.