I’ve been a victim of being sucked into the spec work field. But I do it mainly so I will be able to have the experience and to add it for my resume. But I do agree that it devalues the profession of design. There are sooo many sites that have crowd sourcing for design work. Which is pretty pathetic and just another business model. But I do not have a problem helping someone out with design work as long as they we will work out a barter system that will help each other out.