Every time I've contacted Steam Support, their response was swift and helpful. Including Direct2Drive. Direct2Drive's support is heavenly.
Support: "How can I help you?"
Me: "The game says I ran out of licenses."
Support: "Here, let me refresh them for you!"
Me: "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU"
That's taken me, at the most, 30 minutes.

The fact that you even have to take the time to ask for license renewals is shameful. Shouldn't you be able to play your games without having to contact support every few months to ask for more licenses?

Hey, it's better than having a boxed copy of that game, running out, and the tech support associated with the team not giving you SHIT because they think you stole it. Which happened to me with Dark Athena, so I had to re-buy it from Direct2Drive (Who DO renew my licenses) when it was on sale because Atari is a sad sack of shit that should BURN.

How is that shameful in any way? The use of limited licences is nothing to do with a retailer. In this example a retailer has given a customer more activations when asking. Isn't that what we ALL want?

Indeed, but this is a case of one system being less bad than the other (and neither being "good").
Just remember who to blame for your troubles: publishers and pirates.

Dark Athena uses TAGES. TAGES tell all their customers that the only reason anyone would ask for more activations is because they are pirates. TAGES is a cancerous pollip on the anus of gaming.

Indeed, but this is a case of one system being less bad than the other (and neither being "good").
Just remember who to blame for your troubles: publishers and pirates.

Direct2Drive's DRM is their own system. They choose to give you limited activations on every title they sell (save for the DRM-free games). How is that a good system?

It would take a very good deal to make me buy from Impulse again anyway. Not often does your account split in two, but it has already happened twice with Impulse. At least one time it fixed itself. But even so. I don't like it haemorrhaging games like that.
The double charging thing just seals my wariness.

Atari insisted that Direct2Drive include DRM. How is that Direct2Drive's fault? When a customer ran out of activations Direct2Drive provided more. How is that a bad system?

It even sounds like a disease.
Vet: Mr Bloggs, I think you should take a seat.
Bloggs: Is it that bad, Doc?
Vet: I'm not sure how to put this, so I'll come right out and say it; Fido has tages.
*dog's head promtly falls off, and a rat runs out of its guts trying to take the lower intestine with it*

Because not EVERY game sold from Steam or Impulse comes with SecuROM and limited activations? In fact, a small minority of the games sold via the aforementioned services use limited activations (Ubisoft has been forcing TAGES on all of its recent titles, retail or otherwise, so boo to them).
Every game (unless marked as "DRM-free") sold via Direct2Drive uses SecuROM with limited activations. Is that what you want on all of your games?

Funny thing is when this happened to me the last time Stardock said that it was because they secure the funds at pre-order. Essentially they check you have the money before they confirm the order. They then charged me when Street Fighter IV was released so as far as my Credit Card was concerned they tried to charge me twice for the same transaction and naturally my card said hell no. I was then told by the snotty woman from Stardock support that they only had to clear the first payment to make the sale go ahead. She also pointed out this would never have happened if I had more balance available on my Credit Card. I did say she was rude.
This time I decided to test that by having plenty of money on my card when pre-ordering Devil May Cry 4. Again I was charged at pre-order. Again I was charged when the game was added to my Impulse client. So I am looking forward to their excuse why this happened. There is obviously something Stardock are doing with pre-orders that really messes with non-US Credit Cards. I like how Stardock told me on Twitter that they will "get around to it" and "It is the holidays". Good job I have a pre-paid Credit card or Stardock's Holiday would be earning interest on a post-pay credit card.

As long as they keep coughing up new activations whenever you ask do you care?

This has happened to me, twice:
Friend: Hey, let's play Titan Quest!
Me: Ok
[a few minutes later]
Looks like I'm out of activations, sorry.
[the following day, support informs me that my activations have been renewed]
Great...

Okay, that's it. Any business that sloppy where money is concerned deserves none of it.