It’s been under construction for years, certain key scientific modules have been scrapped altogether, and by the time it’s "properly" finished it’ll have 9 years of use before they deorbit it. They spent billions of dollars assembling the whole thing, when they could have done the same research far cheaper in a "vomit comet"....However, it’s an opinion.
Are you forgetting why its construction was delayed, the loss of Columbia was a major blow to the timetable and the main reason for the cancellation of many plans including most of the cancelled modules, during the downtime immediately following the disaster the ISS was limited to a crew of two. Its planned lifespan has not changed and is longer than anything before it including MIR and Skylab.
Because of previous space missions, your home has a smoke detector, you can build things with portable battery tools, you can go shopping at the supermarket using bar codes to speed checkout, you can cook with non stick teflon, etc etc.
Lets look how space helped our lives last year with the best spinoffs:
* How a NASA scientist-licensed Hubble Space Telescope scheduling technology and adapted it to help hospitals handle dynamic rescheduling issues. Using the On-Cue system, one hospital reported a 12 percent increase in procedure volume, a 35 percent reduction in staff overtime, and significant reductions in backlog and technician phone time.
* The Givens Buoy Life Raft incorporates a NASA-developed raft design used for recovering pioneer astronauts after ocean splashdowns, has been credited with saving more than 400 lives.
* An adapted Hubble Space Telescope star-mapping algorithm is helping researchers track the elusive whale shark using the unique spots on the shark's skin. Using the algorithm and a photograph database receiving contributions from scuba divers worldwide, researchers last year documented more than 2,400 sightings of the rare animal. Previously, there were only a few hundred documented sightings in total.
* Using NASA satellite data, WorldWinds Inc. supplies about 8,500 XM satellite radio subscribers with its FishBytes fish locator service. FishBytes helps anglers target areas most likely to be frequented by their favorite types of sport fish.
Further reading can be had here:
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
Do you really think they would be spending money if it could be done cheaper another way, this is hardly a BER project run by the hot air department in Canberra.
I have an aunt conveniently in the area and left my schedule flexible in case of delays. My aunt and I went to a public park directly across the water from the launch site and had a pretty good view. Too far away for good video with my measly 3xzoom but close enough to enjoy the sights and sounds of the launch. There was a radio station which had updates from mission control. It was awesome. 
