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1) A lot of people, such as myself, do live in very cold climates. A remote starter not only warms your car, it also melts the ice off of the windshield saving you 15-ish minutes in the morning scraping ice and snow off of your car.
2) Most car manufacturers recommend letting a vehicle warm up at idle when the temps are a ways below freezing. Here in the snow belt, that means basically every day from December - April.
3) A lot of people also have apartments (or, in my case, offices) that are far enough away from where they park that a standard remote start won't work. Or, try it from inside a shopping mall or what not. By time you are in range, your car won't have long enough for the car to warm up. So, most any standard remote start system is not going to work for me and surely others.
4) My late model Accord has a factory add-on remote start option. It's about $750 installed, and I have thought about it every winter since I got it but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I can go to Best Buy or the local car audio shop and get a cheap-o car start for about $200, but it's a one way system with very limited reception. That means that you have no way of knowing if your car actually started and have the limitations noted in #3 above.
5) The website says the $299 module is an addon for existing Viper start/security systems, and the $499 module is everything you need to add the system to your car. I'm assuming there is some extra for install, not sure if they build that in or not.
So, while I may be a minority here, the $499 option is actually a pretty good deal for me. It's still a little rich for my blood, but it's not as far fetched as you might think for those of us who get extreme winters and spend wayyyy too much time scraping half an inch of ice off their cars.