Let's just say, we can agree to disagree, since I have seen forum posts vanish, and the gamers bill of rights altered, what 1 or 2 times at this point.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Brad at the Penny Arcade Expo this year and interview him about Elemental. He was probably the nicest and most down-to-Earth guy you could ever imagine someone of his stature to be. A class act.

As I described on p25 of the gaming deals thread, there seems to be misinformation going around about EA's download manager. It's not needed for updates, doesn't run when you don't ask it and isn't needed to run when playing the two games I bought. I made backups because of reports EA didn't allow redownload after one year, but that may not be true either.
On their website, as well as their Dead Space forum, I read that they planned to patch out the copyright protection in the future for their games after their profit cycles had reached a certain point. Also, all EA's new games incorporate Securom BUT even with retail disks will be playable without the cd. I experienced this myself with a retail copy of Mirror's Edge, which is now stored in a drawer because I don't need the disk anymore. Hurrah!
I also read a page on their website that said digital games could be re-sold once, something Steam doesn't allow you to do. With recent games, they also allow you to register your game with the EA downloader to be able to download it from the EA store (so, if you have a retail game that's on the EA store, it's likely you can register to download it free to download and play without the disk...I'd bet it works with Direct2Drive serials of EA games too).
I loathe DRM, but the negative press attention on EA seems to have caused them to do things in a way I can live better with. I emailed 2K games 8 days ago (no reply) asking them why I had to activate Bioshock and still have to play with the dvd in my drive...then find that EA has already acted on that issue.

Would you by any chance have a link to where you found that update?

I patched the game with the patch from ME's website, but it seemed to be diskless right after installing the game off the disk. If it doesn't work for you, then you can still activate a free digital download by downloading the EA downloader and pasting your serial in there.

My hurrah is that with recent EA games you don't need the disk in drive to play, whereas with Bioshock (also using Securom online authentication) I need to stick the disk in drive every single time.
Anyway, my original post was just to clear up some misperceptions people have of the EA downloader these days. The Spore debacle has obviously prompted them to improve their service.
Edit: Based on the user experience right now, I'd rather have Securom'd Mirror's Edge in its current state than Steam client Mirror's Edge. Steam ME would definitely take longer to boot up...plus, if EA do release patches to remove Securom protection, this wouldn't affect Steam customers as they'd still be reliant on Steam to manage and play the game.

Just in case you weren't aware, the Steam version of Mirror's Edge (and all other games actually published by EA on Steam -- ie, not EA Partner games such as Crysis) don't contain SecuROM. And yes, I checked that myself to confirm it.

No, I had no idea the Steam version was different - thanks for pointing that out.
Still, that just means exchanging one online authentication service with another (more friendly, admittedly), and that is not going to happen with any of my money involved.

I can certainly follow you up to a point, having to insert some damn disk whenever you want to play is a right royal pain in the backside.
However, I would rather do that, than rely on some online "entity" that may or may not be present at any given time, to allow me to play my game.

Very interesting story, and a very good read! My problems with IP are more along the lines of my Steam problems, primarily centering around the ability to "take back" a users purchased titles without compensation (Although I will add that SD has confirmed to me that if they ever blocked a user, they would give them ample notice of the ban to allow them to download uninstalled titles, or offer refunds for them...if you believe them). .
That being said, it is hard to think of a digital distribution platform that could cater to AAA modern titles by publishers that want security. I actually think Steam does a lot of things right, and if they were willing to at least drop their policy of taking back an entire accounts worth of games for a transgression, I would considar using them again.

I did not realize that so I would have that same issue as well. However, my issues with Steam is that my games simply stopped running at times and no matter how many times I uninstalled and reinstalled they would not work. I gave up uninstalled Steam and will not use it any longer as well. It seemed more of a waste of money than anything else.