I can sure agree with some of that FRAMEshift. The corporate takeover of family farms during the 80's and 90's (and even continuing today) took a lot of the wind from our collective souls IMO. I believe the elimination of competitor seeds was an after thought to the takeover, but I could be wrong on that (I just don't want to give them any credit, heck NO credit ;) A sad part of our shared, yet mostly ignored history, also IMO.
I've been saving 'heirloom' seeds since the early sixties, starting with some nicotania (tobacco) supplied by my Grandmother, and each year we try to save a little more, lots of veggies and flowers, some we believe are likely not available anywhere else but our gardens :). And we're big supporters of the 'seed savers exchange' who've been around for a while.
The 'ease' of seed saving largely depends on the seed being saved. Many are actually quite difficult, especially some of the bi annuals and those that require a stratification period.
For example, corn seed is considerably more simple to save than tomato seed.
thomas