rjbuffchix: I think it got lost in the shuffle, but Tempest should be on this list. It currently crashes at startup when run without Galaxy. Per a response I received from Support, this is a known issue currently being investigated but it is not fixed yet and I was not given any timetable on it being fixed.
Right now, the only way to access the previous version (which worked without Galaxy) is to use Galaxy to get access to the "rollback feature" and get the offline installer that way. So the solution to the game not working without Galaxy is to "just use Galaxy"(tm) to get an older version of the game that works without Galaxy.
It's nice of galaxy to give you two options here. I guess that's why it's called optional.