There's nothing "wrong" with MLM if you're a "consumer"...
The difference is that the insurer and the realtor don't use "hiring suckers to hire more suckers" as their business plans. They actually have a product to sell, and they're up-front about what they're selling. If you want to work for them, they're up-front about that, too. A tiered marketing structure is perfectly fine in that respect.
Oh, and Cutco were the knives he was trying to sell me. I didn't like the handles and parts of the sales pitch were patently bogus, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad knives.