I wholly agree, although single directory releases are also acceptable.

Last shop I worked at was ... well, they were of an age and came from an era when installation meant "drop some files in a directory, set up an icon on a desktop, what do you mean 'dependencies' and 'framework' and 'installer'?" I did my best to accommodate, because that seems more reasonable to me, but it certainly wasn't simple.

I do not dislike the concept of the Registry, it is an interesting tradeoff against the skillion dialects of .ini files and other configuration, but much further than that, it feels like installation of software is akin to a drop of ink in the water -- you can't really get it back out again.