Just because you have to have a GMail account to log in to Google services doesn't mean you have to use it as your primary email address. Plain-old GMail is no

Just because you have to have a GMail account to log in to Google services doesn't mean you have to use it as your primary email address. Plain-old GMail is no different (from a UX perspective) from being the sole user on a Google Apps account, so admins haven't really lost anything in terms of being able to evaluate Google Apps. There's nothing particularly interesting in the free version's admin panel.