Collaboration

I'm on the fence regarding collaborative brewing. I'm not talking about collaboration between breweries, like Avery and Russian River teaming up to make "Collaboration Not Litigation Ale", or breweries teaming up with a noted homebrewer, like Stone and Randy Mosher making "Dayman Coffee IPA". Things like that make sense: you basically have an all-star team working on a beer, and by throwing together groups that don't normally work together I imagine you break out of your comfort zone, learn a bit about your partner's style of brewing, and get to work on a really envelope-pushing beer without too much risk (since the expectations are different than if it was just another beer in your standard lineup). I'd consider something like Sierra Nevada's "Beer Camp" to be an extension of this.

(Tangent: These collaborations aren't just limited to two partners, by the way; I saw in the March/April 2010 issue of Imbibe that Russian River, Lost Abbey, Allagash, Avery and Dogfish Head all collaborated on a sour ale called "Proximus". I'd love to try that.)

No, what I'm talking about are the "inspired by"-type beers, where a brewery "collaborates" with some public figure to produce a new beer. A few I'm thinking of:

• DC Brau and D.C. United: "The Tradition".  Apparently the team approached the brewery about producing a beer, which makes it akin to a brewery making the house beer for a sports arena. 
•  The Flying Monkeys and Barenaked Ladies: "BNL Strong Beer", a chocolate Imperial Stout.  The head of Flying Monkeys, Peter Chiodo, admits it's his recipe, and the band simply approved it.  It doesn't strike me as anything more than branding--it's their name slapped on a product they had little to do with (although the band members apparently did come in to help dump ingredients into the vats).
• Dogfish Head and Pearl Jam: "Faithful".  Chido claims that Pearl Jam essentially just allowed their name to be used in this beer honoring the 20th anniversary of the album "Ten".
• Cambridge Brewing Company is making a beer honoring slain MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was killed by the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing.  I have to admit I'm really uncomfortable with this, even though it's being done with the full approval of his family, and some of the profits are going to the officer's favorite charity.  It still feels like an attempt to profit off his death to me.  I think I would be more comfortable with it if all, rather than some, of the profits were going to charity.
• Dillon Dam Brewery and Denver Art Museum: "DAM Gogh", a beer honoring Van Gogh.  This one actually seems like an appropriate choice: the brewery has a history of Van Gogh-inspired beers, and there was a real effort to tie the beer in with the subject.  It's a bier de garde, chosen because Van Gogh so often used the average French citizen as a subject.  It also uses anise to tie it in with absinthe, the drink the artist famously imbibed.

Some of these seem more like marketing gimmick than collaboration.  Some of them strike me as crass attempts to make money.  What do you think?