I'm sure the 6 million new members is absolutely nothing to do with the annual banwaves or the spate of new nokia lumina phones that integrate xbl features, or people just making new accounts and other such things, it's for sure just 6 million people that went out and paid full retail for a years subscription...
Really though, registration numbers mean nothing, i freaking dare you to find a person that has just one account on the ps3 or 360.
As for the argument of "is it worth it", that's entirely up to the individual, sure it would be nicer if it was free, but it is not, you either pay or you dont, if your opinion is it's crap then that's your *opinion*, there are millions of paying live members who would dissagree, just like theres millions of potential online players who wish it wouldn't cost them extra to play online.
My only issue with it is that premium services should be a 'value added service', rather than an 'added service', so here's hoping the next xbox will allow a modcrum of online functionality for games, and just reserve access to premium servers and such for gold members.
