Wow. 20 hours of downtime due to catastrophic failure. I fail to see how the earth is still revolving around the sun.

Define "unnecessary"? I think almost everyone who dislikes DRM would argue that it is unnecessary (since it gets cracked so quickly). Hell, you could argue that a disc check (the most accepted form of DRM) is completely unnecessary, since we would need the disc to install the game (or you are pirating it, at which point you already will bypass the checks).
Now, let's sit in the real world for a bit :p. Unfortunately, there are no good studies of piracy with DRM versus piracy without DRM, so it is really up to the publisher to decide if they want it. Some DRM is worse than others, but whatever.
Hell, let's continue on this. You say the publisher is bad for putting an online activation check in there because 10 years down the line we might not be able to play. Then you better be ready to scream and yell at anyone who uses a disc check. How do we know if we are going to still use CD-ROMs in 10 years? We stopped using 3.5" floppies (let alone the 5.25" or whatever the one that was actually floppy was sized at). So the publisher is putting completely unnecessary checks that will make the gamer 10 years from now suffer.
You think that is BS? I love Star Crusader for my 486 (came on a disc with Dark Forces and Sim City 2k :p), but I can't play it without plugging in my 486. Why? Because the disc check is too sophisticated for DOSBox to emulate to the point of letting it realize I have the damned disc in the drive (and I can't find a crack...).
Hell, let's use some more 10 year old examples. A lot of games used the "What is word 5 on Page 4, Paragraph 4" (For Aladdin, that is "loading" :p) method. Those are a bitch today, because you either need the physical manual in front of you (which means going to the box) or you need the pdf (which means dealing with poorly scanned pdfs).
The ONLY responsibility that I think publishers/devs have with regard to activation model DRM is to avoid limited activation models and to make sure that a large company is backing it up. Steam and even Securom are good examples of this. They are large companies. If you have a problem, someone will be there to fix it. Torchlight picked a random company that nobody had ever heard of, and their activation model approach was overwhelmed on the first few days. Plus, I know that Steam and Securom are going to be around for at least a few years more, so that covers that.

I fail to see the reason for such a sarcastic comment when I simply pointed out your expectation for redundancy won't mean constant up time.

Indeed. Any critical system should have multiple backups at different geographical locations and automatic failover. There is no excuse for having 20 hours of downtime; with proper administration downtime would be measured in seconds.
But publishers may not consider their authentication servers "critical", especially seeing as the customers have already paid for their games by the time they are trying to authenticate...

Nice straw man. We are talking about digital software & not analog things. No "parts" to wear out. I'm still playing games that I bought in the early 90's. I expect to be playing them for as long as I have sense enough to back them up on new media occasially.

Digital Software does have a part that 'wears out' the disc itself. Ask people here how many games on 'indestructable' CD's are still running years after they were bought. You yourself admit you have to back them up onto new media from time to time.
And what is with Straw Man's appearing everywhere on the net these days? Usually used to make a fool of someone who has provided a perfectly good analogy.

You're forgetting the most important parts, the PC hardware and OS required to run your game. You can back up all you want, but there will come a time when the hardware will not be able to support the game. As OSes change, the ability to use that software deteriorates until the point where it simply cannot be used anymore.

I agree. In my experience, if you treat discs properly (don't scratch them, get fingerprints on them or store them in sunlight) they will last for years. My personal experience with optical discs only goes back 15-16 years, but I've never had a pressed CD or DVD go bad in that time. Of course, if you mistreat discs or get UV light on them, they will die from bit rot after some time.
This is less relevant to the discussion at hand though. The problem isn't that DRM is preventing you from playing the game for all time, it's that the game becomes unusable much sooner than it otherwise would have through purely "natural" means.

Strictly speaking borrowing is not allowed either as far as copyright goes. Not that anyone enforces that at least, thank god.

Are you sure about that? IANAL, but I doubt it.

So, does mass effect 2 have the same DRM scheme as Dragon Age? And what is that scheme? Securom with online activation? The idea of lots of often released DLC that need online verification sounds interesting, but what about those who download the first game and not get the DLC at all?

Ah scratch that, looking at the nearest couple of manuals to me (Homeworld Cataclysm and F.E.A.R) it says you are allowed to transfer your licence so long as you basically uninstall your version of the program beforehand and then of course they could transfer it back to you the same way. I'm sure I've seen a copyright licence that expressly forbade lending or borrowing... maybe its different for movies or music, although that would require me to get up and walk five feet to my dvd rack. So maybe some other time.

DA:O uses a simple disc check. And a no_DVD crack gets rid of that. The DLC simply needs an online account which you register your CD key to. You can remove your registration at any time (at which point I expect you lose access to the DLC), but it does allow you to sell your game on to someone else.
I expect ME2 will use the same method that DO:A did to encourage people to register their game; provide day one DLC which will be free to original owners of the game.
And if you chose not to use any DLC? Simply don't register your game, don't sign into a profile and play offline.

But then those who warez the base game and dont register for the DLCs, then for them the DRM scheme didnt work. And I think DLCs are warezed too, and the warez groups find ways to distribute them without needing registration.