>the posters turn out to either be selling the products themselves or are otherwise benefitting from the sales or referalls their posts generate.
That's actually part of the reason this board was created. /r/nootropics is run by the guy that owns ceretropic. His personal army downboats any criticism of his products or service.
As far as results, I've had good success with noopept. It did a good job of helping my memory in college and helped me pass calculus 3 with flying colors.
I've just started experimenting with piracetam, and its seems to help, but its not strong enough of an effect to convince me its not placebo. It does seem to be slightly stimulating, but I haven't noticed the kind of verbal fluency and enhanced colors beginning piracetam users tend to report.