Remember Apple's concept for bring your own device (BYOD)? That's really how they envisioned people to use profiles.
A user himself will willingly load a profile onto his own computer. The trade off is that he can use his preferred platform (a Mac) while giving up some control to an administrator. Profiles will allow the administrator to do things such as locking down where the user could save sensitive files or what networks he could access.
Administrators still need a solution like MCX where they are in complete control. We are trying to shoehorn the role of profiles into the role of MCX. Until Apple designs profiles in such a way that they support both BYOD and traditional administration or until old administrators like us bend to Apple's concept we're going to be struggling with this.
