I dislike Steam, but I'll admit I can stomach paying a very small amount (like, less than for a pack of Twinkies) for the "privilege of leasing intellectual property for an indefinite period of time," especially if I can then download a crack that will let me just ignore Steam.

Egosoft provides legal no-cd executables. Thus you don't need to crack anything. There is of course a small hassle involved, but for this price i think it's acceptable.

If these people have such a big problem with Steam why don't they just buy the bundle then torrent the games?
I went ahead and bought it, nut is this recommendation from the base bundle only or the full thing?

You just don't understand...

Because they want to play the games and support the developers. The idea situation should be that the X series games are sold with DRM-free links via HB or Egosoft.
Why should someone have to go through the effort of buying a game then illegally downloading it? If you think like that you would just skip part 1 and go to playing the games.
The reality is that DRM only affects those playing legally anyway, so I can never see why companies hold so hard to the idea of it, whilst cutting out so many other potential customers.

I feel that when I give someone money for something, at least the copy I get should be mine. Yet buying games on Steam is only 'renting' the game. So when Steam go under they will take peoples games with them.
I am willing to buy exceptional games (in deals) even with Steam, but I will rebuy them elsewhere in a heartbeat without the DRM.
Licurg and IAmSinistar are standing by their principles, and good for them, as when you have no principles you have nothing left to stand by.

From the base. You can start with either Terran Conflict or Albion. They are both very long. TC has more storyline missions though. AP is has a shorter story and more sandbox play, but less bugs :).

But if Licurg is okay with SecuROM, then I'm not sure if I would call it a principle. :/

As Licurg just said, you seem to have missed the point, so lets try this again, shall we?
Paying even $1 on this deal is spending money that supports a practice and culture they're against.
For a few more $ they can get the games some place else without having to go against their beliefs or through all the hassle of the proposed solution.
I pointed out that the hassle was too much, even if one could get over their principle.

No SecuROM (and similar DRM sh*t) in my PC allowed!!!

Steam's not always online. And don't argue about it, it's just not, plain and simple. The Ubisoft's client on the other hand... Grr.

It might not be a constant online connection, but every time I go to play a game with the internet on Steam spends about half an hour downloading in the background before doing anything, and when I connect to keep it working it hangs before demanding it be reinstalled.
As a practice I personally find them intrusive and irritating. Not a good mix for customer satisfaction.

And I'll reply that I have several hundred games on Steam and that I have never ran into such issues, other people will jump on that to get onto the entire 'Steam is evil' argument, then the second bunch will jump onto it with 'Steam is the best thing evah' argument, some people will try to be reasonable and start trolling with their balanced opinions, and we'll go on and forth until the entire thread is burried. No. I just don't like misinformation - Steam most certainly is not always online DRM. It's got other problems.

Soooo X games. Good? Bad? Ugly? Worth a dollar? Worth $6 for the BTA? I've never played them and I'm on a Mac, so debating whether or not to pick up the regular bundle since only X3 is Mac compatible. Are they aggressively plot dependent on their predecessors (as in, will I miss out on mad amounts of story not playing 1 and 2)?

Not really.