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I don't think GOG ever used this right. I've never heard about such case. I guess it was just a safe clause to avoid some users who may want to abuse GOG Connect (e.g. by purchasing on Steam, importing to GOG and refunding on Steam or sth like that). You're safe. Of course you may be safer by simply downloading offline installers of your games.

And to be clear - as of now GOG Connect is dead. There was some official statement that they have no plans at the moment to add any games to the service.

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AFAIK, GOG never communicated the reason for having this clause - or, if potential "abuse" was the reason - whatever that actually entails.
I agree with your reference to the offline installer part. In the end, no online service can guarantee its service for as long as you'd like (for whatever reason).

Mmm I am not sure why you felt you needed to remove them.
While I have over 600 game entries at Steam now, the huge majority freebies, I manage them all by creating folders or categories at Steam, and that fixes the clutter for me. I only see what I want to see. Not sure if Steam have an actual HIDE option ... never felt the need to look into that ... they may do. Or maybe they have a TAG option like GOG does.

Removing games never makes sense to me unless you hate them. I get that people get bored with a game, have played it to death, but a few years down the track it may be unavailable, and you have a nostalgic urge to play it again. I learnt that the hard way with some music I got rid of in my early 20s, that 10 years later I wanted to have again, so had to rebuy, and loved it so much, that I could only shake my head at my younger self ... what an idjet. I'd never rule anything out, so make sure you have backup copies of those games, archived on drives.

As for GOG Connect, I'd say it was dormant rather than dead ... though GOG could kill it off anytime. GOG could also reactivate it any time. They killed off the page for Reclaim your game, though I believe that is sort of supported on the Redeem page now some how, according to GOG.

the only way you can truly remove a game from your steam library is to contact support (the licence actually remains), however, that doesnt mean it can be detected by gog.