In this plug and play world most consumers WANT the convince of drivers to auto install when you plug a product into the USB port.
I am one of the Tech geeks who is against it, unfortunately we are in the minority.
To throw my two cents in (which might not be worth much)... When something is installed in the registry, it makes the registry larger. The larger the registry, the more inefficient the system operates. If you say MJ doesn't slow down your computer, or make the computer function less efficient.. It does.. MJ may only make the registry 200 or 300K larger... But it is a larger registry when all is said and done.
In a way it is MJ's fault and in a way it isn't. Almost all software adds crap to the registry, and most uninstall programs of almost every piece of software still leaves crap in the registry after you uninstall. I am not sure if most registry cleaner software can grab it either.
How effective does creating a system restore point work? There are a few times when I created a system restore point, installed a 30 day trial of a software, later deleted the software, went back to the system restore point before I installed the software, a few months later reinstalled the software, then I get a prompt that says the free trial on of the software has expired. So.. Somehow. somewhere something was written on my computer that I previously tried this software. It HAD to be somewhere in the registry..
Not that I was trying to scam the software developer.. 
But.. it is interesting to find out where the data was written.. But getting back to MJ.. I don't see MJ any different than any of the other evils out there. Plug an Ipod on a USB and see what crap it does to your computer.. Plug a Joystick in your USB and see what drivers auto install.. I have nothing to hide, most of my sensitive e-mails, documents, and personal data are on my work computer. My work computer is firewalled, can't surf, Admin privileges disabled, and uses a VPN tunnel to my offices. When I want to install "Crap".. I use my "toy" computer for that.. LOL.