should google approve apps before they go live?

For sure! It will save a lot of headchaes for everyone.

kind of a no brainer really - the amount of spam apps that flood the app store is kind of annoying.

As the owner of a development company its great that Android do not have a review process as it guarantees we can meet deadline and react quickly to any updates required. However, saying that I am concerned about the quality of apps and aims of some of the apps going into the store. Perhaps now that Android have achieved what they set out to do by having as many apps as Apple that they could now employ a vetting process. As more negative malware stories come out this will start to damage customer confidence. Apple users feel very assured that the apps they download are safe and of a certain quality.