Software without an installer is incomplete and unlikely to be able to compete with traditional commercial software

Ever thought about the possibility that some software might be targeted at a group with a certain skill level? This could be the reason why most people don't try to blame the software to be incomplete just because the installation and configuration cannot be done using a "admin for dummy" wizard.
Despite the fact that I often get annoyed by time consuming installations, I think that this even is a big benefit as I am forced to learn something on the way. IMHO, providing easy installation wizards in areas where some knowledge is badly required is a big mistake.
I cannot speak for emacs, but for PostgreSQL I would suggest that you should take your installation trouble as an indication for a problem at your end. I mean, why do you try to install it on a platform (Win32) it's not designed for anyways?

Golo
(who just couldn't resist anymore and agrees to davidj- real admins get it done, and the rest should leave it to the real ones.)