Whilst I will continue to play older PC games & to buy GOG releases, I have decided today that modern games are just too much of a liability for me to buy them any more. (And, no, I won't pirate them either.)
Here's a couple of illustrations:
1. Fallout 3 - I love this game to the point where I had to force myself to stop playing it over the summer. But earlier on this week, I started it up again only to be forced to download a Windows Live update, followed by a Fallout 3 update (that froze my PC as it finished so I had to reboot) and then about an hour into the game, started blue-screening my PC whenever I went into VATS. One Nvidia graphics driver update later (I was only on the driver release before that) and it seemed to be stable again. However, by this time a couple of hours had passed, and I'd lost all enthusiasm for playing it!
2. Steam - I love all the Valve games but, again, whenever I go to play any of the games, there's updating to do. And then when I get on a Counter-Strike or TF2 game, invariably there's some loud-mouthed idiot on there taking a ***GAME*** far too seriously and swearing at anyone who does something he doesn't like.
3. LAN Play - sorry, but I don't want to be ***FORCED*** to play a game over the Internet every time! Why can't the text on the back of a sealed game box in a shop just ***TELL*** me if the game can be played over a LAN with friends and ***IF*** I need more than one copy of the game to be able to do that!
Admittedly, I'm a grumpy old middle-aged gamer who's been playing games since the days of the good old Sinclair Spectrum and whatever day you pick in that last 30 years or so, there were a whole heap of crap games and some very good games as well - so I don't necessarily think "the old days were better".
But putting aside the occasional "Tape Loading Error" on the Speccy, at least there was a time when I could just ***PLAY*** a game rather than fighting the game because it's either too buggy to be played or because the publisher expects me to jump through hoops fighting their DRM protection!
So, from this day forth, I'm going to continue enjoy the games I have already bought and supplement those occasionally with a GOG game or the occasional independent one - but I am ***NOT*** buying any new releases any more!

Friendly advice, if you ever buy an Xbox 360 (assuming you don't have one), never pay Halo3 without having the other players on mute. You know what, forget Halo 3 entirely, its nothing special. Same for voice comms with random people, they're invariably arseholes.
Many major PC games are on console these days and they're usually a bit less update dependant so it might be an option if you don't object to consoles on principle.
Also, great avatar for a cantankerous first post!

With regards to Steam and there being loud-mouthed players in-game, are you aware you can mute them?
Whilst in-game, press ESC to go to the main menu, click 'Player List', select the player bothering you, and click 'Mute in-game voice'.

Thanks for the advice about the X-Box but it's just not for me - I play mainly FPS and RTS games, or run emulators for DOS, ZX Spectrum or Commodore Amiga to play some older games, and the PC is fine for that.
Other than that, we have a Wii which is fun for sitting around with friends when drunk or for the missus to occasionally dig out Wii Fit, but with no kids in the house, it sits idle most of the time. (It was a freebie with a new mobile contract so it's no biggie to us that it's unused.)
As for Halo, I think it's overrated. I played and finished Halo I on the PC, it was an average FPS with childish Disney-like aliens in it, no comparison to Unreal Tournament or Half-Life on the PC. Not played Halo II or III and no real inclination to do so...
And thanks for the avatar comments! :-) Victor Meldrew is my hero to which I aspire to be when I am a "senior citizen" - in my book, as long as you have the ability to moan and complain, then you won't lose your marbles! :-)

I don't belive it!
Sorry, had to be said. I've been longing to see One Foot in the Grave again for years, but it never made it over here U_U Guess I'll have to consider importing DVDs.
But your point 2 is the very reason I simply refuse to play online games these days. Single player is enough for me =)

As for the bugs, a lot of new games are more complex than older ones. Not always true, but you have to take into account the move to 3D and the graphical glitches caused by the nightmare that is the polygon. AI that consumers demand become more complex. Vastly larger worlds. And so on.
But, that doesn't excuse the publishers who force developers into releasing what is essentially a work in progress.
I've become incredibly despondent when it comes to publishers ceasing the DRM bull that goes on, but I guess it's not all bad.. GOG is a year strong, and giving us plenty of DRM-free games.
Great post though - welcome to forums!

Get Father Ted as well, its got an episode half devoted to working up the courage to go up to him and say it in real life
Single player or coop with people I know for me. The only competitive multiplayer I play is Gears Of War 2 and I'm in a party with 2 mates and have everyone else on mute. Its enough of a team to work cohesively and minimises irritation (except when my mates suck and get killed all the time)
A lot of old games were also dodgy pieces of crap, sometimes complexity isn't the problem...

Note that Fallout 3 does not require Games for Windows Live to play. You only need it if you care about achievements. You also need it to download and install DLC, but after doing that you can simply uninstall it again. The upcoming Game of the Year Edition release will include all five DLC add-ons on the disc.
As for people bad-mouthing you over voice chat, many games (including all those based on Valve's Source engine) include a "mute" feature that is just a click or two away. I have only had to use this once or twice but when I did it was easy to get to and worked instantly. Another option is to call for a vote for that player to be kicked from the server, and if other players are as irritated by his behaviour as you are you should be able to pass a vote without too much trouble.
As for LAN play and other unclear issues, my recommendation would be to read up on forums and/or ask on an active IRC channel. GOG's own channel (#GOG on irc.quakenet.org) is a good place to try; we regularly talk about all sorts of games there and collectively know the specifics of a huge number of current and upcoming games. Such methods will also help you find out about shortcomings a game has that you would not normally even think about, such as Ghostbusters inexplicably lacking multiplayer (both console versions include it) or Resident Evil 4 not supporting mouse aiming (seriously).

My brother and I run a small gaming community here in Denmark. Membership is open to anyone, but as we don't advertise anywhere, it's mostly by recruitment of friends and family. This means that almost everyone knows several of the others personally. We play every six days over the internet (we have our own server), with a steady rotation of BF2, UT2004 and TF2, with the occasional Trackmania event thrown in for good measure. When we have an event (every aforementioned six days), the server is password protected. The system works incredibly well. We've been at it for more than 2 years, and have had unbelievable amounts of fun.

1. GFWL isn't required for Fallout 3 (neither is the disc if you point your shortcut to Fallout3.exe, rather than the launcher). The only purpose of GFWL is achievements. Surely nobody went and got all of those anyway, right? Right? ¬ ¬
DLC you can simply move to your Data folder.
2. Mute them. Unless it's L4D there's no point in listening to them anyway.
3. There are a lot of things that should be listed on the backs of boxes, like DRM for instance.
When you buy an entertainment product you don't do so because you want aggravation. Hell, you never know, you may have even bought it because you wanted to enjoy the damn thing. While the old days of gaming were far from as problem-free as you make it sound, at least most of those problems did not stem from the developers deliberately fucking with you.

Yeah, true. There's a lot more to take into account these days, but that's probably offset by a significantly larger development team.
It feels like these days games are increasingly buggier than what they used to be (maybe I just got lucky back then), perhaps I understated it, but there are a lot of publishers pushing out unfinished games.

Certainly not! I've still got one left to get.
Nah in the case of my good old days of gaming, most of the problems I encountered was the twats at Kmart leaving palettes of C64 tapes out on the back docks in the middle of an Australian summer. It was about a 50/50 chance that games would work when you bought them

Which one?
Ah, but there was the collision detection and the fact that it was all too obvious nobody. Nobody. NOBODY playtested some of those games. Even the people who made them clearly never actually played their creations. Not once. Not ever.

Couldn't agree more with the OP. I believe that current mainstream PC gaming is nothing else but a sub-product of console gaming, neglected and troublesome. A few stars in the horizon in the form of Blizzard games are the only reason for me to keep coming back to the platform. The PC is all about old games for me. When you could play DOOM shareware for hours and hours without having to endure any of the hassles of today's Internet-based gaming.