To me, a Zen garden is a profoundly beautiful thing, with raked sand around stones. Of course, that's not the only form of Zen garden, but it's the form that we've latched onto as Westerners. It seems either stupid or strange to condense such an object into a size conventient for desktop use. It seems like a typical Western bent on an Eastern design: distil, condense, simplify, mass-produce and sell. I'll admit that it is entirely possible, say, to create a desktop Zen garden that does not betray its philosophy, but when it's made of plastic and sells for $9.95 with colourful pebbles, someone's gone too far.
Think of a Western icon, like a sports car or a cathedral, then reduce it in size, make it of poor quality, and put it on your desk. Now what's it for? It doesn't represent anything it did before, and most of its actual function has disappeared. If I was a Zen Buddhist, that's probably how I'd feel about desktop Zen stone gardens.
Mokalus of Borg
PS - But then again, if I was a Buddhist, I'd have a different personal philosophy.
PPS - So I can't actually say for certain how I'd feel about it all.
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