[larsberg]

As another PhD student, I don't really get all of the rage. In practice, everything post-1997 is easily accessible, and if you're searching through CiteseerX you probably won't even notice the difference. I won't claim it's a great system, but there is observational equivalence with "free and unencumbered publication" modulo a 3" x 4" blurb of text on the lower-left of the first page of the document.

Except for a select few Springer-Verlag publications (mainly the more book-chapter-like ones).

[patrickyeon]

When you are no longer a student, it will not be so easy. IEEE and ACM (at least) will charge you for articles, and without an IP address registered to your university, all you'll see is abstracts.

[larsberg]

No, what I'm saying is that you can get exactly the same paper through CiteseerX, modulo the copyright (which is all that changes between the preprint and final).