"If you want to blame the increase on it being a lander rather than an orbiting probe, how much more interest do you think a human mission would bring? I think it is clearly contradictory to claim human missions hold little additional interest value yet claim getting a more human view from a lander cranks up interest."
I think a Manned Mars at touch down could easily have 100 times the number of hits, but it this really isn't too significant.

"How do you explain the increase in interest from pathfinder to Spirit if you think the high interest is just from being a lander rather than an orbiter?"
More people are connected to the internet & plus a more robust internet that can handle traffic plus each individual computer [on average] which is connecting is faster and broader connection- the major factors. Plus there was the interest from Beagle 2 (first European lander, ect) which would have had carry over interest to Mer.

"If you don't want to believe Mars as the target makes any difference try comparing the Mars orbiters with NEAR or Lunar Prospector in interest."
I believe NEAR had a fair amount of interest [I recalled reading about at time, but don't have numbers handy]. LP didn't have any camera, it's results with neutron detector etc were difficult to grasp for most people- Mars Odyssey has similar package [but improved] plus, a camera.

"If you think Cassini is going to generate more interest why didn't Galileo generate more interest than Mars missions? Saturn may have rings, but the bands of Jupiter are far more interesting than those on Saturn and Jupiter had 4 Moons of high interest rather than one. I wouldn't be surprised myself if Cassini generated more interest, but I don't think it is a foregone conclusion based on the interest in Galileo. Perhaps picture volume will make a big difference, major surprises on Titan, or just the rings."
Cassini has a lander which is landing on Titan. Galileo main antenna to rely data never functioned. Plus if you look the whole mission Galileo has had a lot of interest [the various pictures releases of Io and Europa were fairly big news events]. And it's different because with MER you a single event [did it land safely] whereas Galileo only orbited

"I don't see pictures of Earth as a big deal since many space probes have made them in Earth swingbyes and we have lots of Satellites in Earth orbit which can take pictures."

I tend to agree, but another minor point: for some nerd type using big Earth based telescope (optical and radio) it might add some interest to a lunar misssion- they might be able follow the operation independently.