I proved without a doubt that you can't run games purchased through steam without being logged into steam and some people still can't see that.

Steam offline mode is very very broken. Has been for years and Valve really couldn't care less about fixing it. But you can get it to work most of the time if you've run all games at least once while online and recently.
Of course to ensure it works you then have to actually remove your internet connection and let the Steam client time out until it offers you the choice of going offline. Then, it should work 80% of the time.
But trying to go into offline mode while you actually have a working net connection on your PC? You're wasting your time pretty much.

Steam is like the iTunes of gaming, during the days of full DRM on all songs. You are forever locked into the platform, and must run it to do anything with your games. Many gamers are so invested in Steam that they refuse to try other digital distribution services ("What's the point," they say, "when I have so much money in Steam?").
With GOG, you are platform-independent. With Impulse, you use a client but it is not required to play games. Stardock is also adding a feature called Impulse Anywhere that will allow gamers to download games without the Impulse client (similar to GOG). Another interesting store is GamersGate, which I used for the first time the other day. Steam is most definitely not on the side of the consumer in terms of DRM.

And when you were online, you had to be signed into to a valid account, not one that was disabled.. well it's not even possible to be signed into a disabled account.

The two don't really compare DRM tracks from Itunes are just about useless on anything other than an ipod so once an ipod customer forever an ipod customer. I'm no Apple hater but I refuse to by an ipod, still got my brick of a Creative zen nx. In effect Apple have created their own monopoly due to the all conquering itunes and being the first out of the blocks with decent mp3 player.
Steam is not restricted to one model of PC and a PC can run many different games from multiple sites, at least others are able to compete.

it is restricted to windows.

True, I'll give you that.

You can run it using Wine on Linux. Sure it isn't officially supported, but no other DD service that I'm aware of supports it either.

and you can run it using parallels, but don't get confused saying steam isn't limited to a platform, because it is.

I am running it in Leopard with CrossOver Games. Granted, that is just another offshoot of WINE.

regardless, it is not a supported operating system, it's like saying "oh I can emulate an xbox 360 so the xbox live games can run on pc too!"
no, emulation =\= viable platform

regardless, Steam is not necessary to run the games so don't use Steam if you don't like it.

What? You must run Steam in order to play any game purchased on Steam. You cannot open Steam-purchased games with the Steam client closed (it will start itself when you attempt to launch said games).

There are easy fixes for that.