I'm not a huge fan of this campaign either. Of course I was happy to show my support for ALS, as I do for several other charities which I have a personal connection to, but the MLM style of the ice bucket challenge doesn't jive well with my value system of not projecting my personal beliefs onto others.
Often when fundraising you donate because either the cause is directly important to you, or because the person asking is directly involved and they are important to you. This direct link is the passion that drives awareness and support for any particular cause. Unfortunately I think it cheapens the result when you require people who may not be as passionate about a particular cause being the ones responsible for perpetuating its message simply because they were 'nominated'.
I'm glad that awareness was increased at the start of the campaign, but when the news headlines are about how one celebrity has out-challenged another celebrity then it's just become an acronym and that's truly unfortunate.
edit: On the flip side, it's hard to argue with $80m regardless of who's sending the message.