Although I will agree that working with "big" publishers is not smart for indie developers, I wouldn't tell them to "give up", I think the overall message is wrong. Just because big publishers don't want to "waste" their money on an indie title that probably won't gross much money in the mainstream market (and I guarentee you, that's why Spector is saying to drop the idea) doesn't mean you don't have to opportunity to introduce the latest Brain Age.

Oh, you didn't know? Brain Age is technically an indie title. Very small amount of cash went into it, there were a total of 3 (!) programmers (compare that to the usual 20+ on "big" projects) on the staff, and it has grossed a very healthy amount of cash for such a "low profile" project. Granted, Brain Age was lucky enough to be published by Nintendo, but who's to say that the big publishers aren't willing to push indie titles to the main stream? With the Wii, we might even see this, and we've already gotten a glimpse with Live Arcade. If anything, it's starting to become more feasible that indie titles will be available on consoles either through the more simple route of Virtual Console or Live Arcade, or by being published by some risk-taking company.

Indie development is live and well - it can only get better if we push our products to the high standards required by "big" publishers, and at least try to get them published. You never know what can happen if you're persistant enough :)