You would think that bing would be trying to win the popularity contest by actually providing more relevant searches in the short term and then expanding ads in the future...
I'm not sure why Google's results might be said to be /useless/? There's definitely an interesting argument to be made about Google using a monopolistic position in search to cross-promote some of their other products (local, ads, maps), but the OP's examples seem to show results that quite likely exactly what the user would have been searching for.
I guess what I'm saying is that pure organic search isn't necessarily the optimal way for a user to find the information they're looking for.
You would think that bing would be trying to win the popularity contest by actually providing more relevant searches in the short term and then expanding ads in the future...