I watched a good portion of the show's run and, while I didn't know very much at the time about the shows that preceded it, I still knew it sucked. (Still have about 10 episodes on tape, though.)
Looking back, what really bothers me about the show is how much whatever remained of
Sale/Aussie
Temptation was changed -- the Instant Bargains always ended with a five-second "Shop Clock", the Fame Game had its heart torn out, Instant Cash capped at $5,000, and the aforementioned flaws with the shopping endgame. Apparently, the format for the series was the same one they used for the 2006 pilots shot on the Australian set, but the pitchfilm stations got didn't mention anything much beyond "ooh shopping".
The other thing that really bothered me was the fact they used elements of
Wipeout, which I'm pretty sure isn't a Fremantle property. I'm also pretty sure Super Knock-Off was there to offset the five-day limit.
There was also no real cash present, aside from the occasional $10,000 in the endgame, and apparently no consolation prizes if you didn't buy anything (including champions) -- just "Lots of love and hugs from me.", which is great but amounts to $0 in the end.
Oh, and the endgame was called "the shopping spree of a lifetime" but didn't let players buy more than one prize. Huh?
Having only seen the two "preview" episodes, it felt like the show was trying to stick as much of $ale of the Century into itself as possible without being $ale of the Century.
It sounds stupid, and it looked stupid.
Look up the Nicole/Katina/Susan episode uploaded by thewhammy83 -- it's a great example of how bad the series was, primarily in terms of contestant intelligence. Instant Cash is particularly headdesk-worthy.