fishfinger - 8:12 am on Jun 20, 2009 (gmt 0)

the ability to be independent from physical location.

... but the point is that these are LOCAL results - Google title them "Local Business Results".

I am often surprised at the sites I find there - unoptimised sites with very few links. Sometimes I even think they have a few 'wild card' listings. As a webmaster, yes it's puzzling and even frustrating sometimes, but as a user (and a small business) I like the fact that the local results are not dominated by the big boys in the way that the traditional SERPs have often become.