>>I've dealth with spammer software, and even on the receiving end it is often visibly buggy.

Something like 25% of the spam email I get has things like %RND_UCHAR[3-5] and such =D

Yes, Joe Spammer is probably using some crappy bought software, but eventually (if captchas stay around) Joe Spammer is going to be able to defeat them (programatically or through other methods)