I do too. It seemed to pop up more frequently when I was connected through a "bad" connection (i had a 3G USB dongle for a while) than it does now. However, it still pops up sometimes - which I always assumed were due to the authentiaction servers being overworked for the moment.

Could you please point me to a press release that confirms this? The more details the better.
I'd love to. But as I already mentioned, the original sources are long since gone from the internet. But do feel free to email Gaben@valvesoftware.com or if you'd rather, you could find the contact details for Doug Lombardi and ask him. Alternatively, take you pick of any of the employees with active forum accounts on the Steam forums and send a private message to any of them.
I always assumed that was a connection timeout
It's not. Looking at steamui_english.txt it is now the generic error message. as labled by "Steam_ErrorCantStartGame
When connection is lost to Steam servers, it's supposed to pop up Steam_CSConnectionLost_Title/Info but having just tested dropped connections, Steam no longer issues any error and will quite happily launch a game (although with a fairly long delay simply showing the "Preparing to launch..." box.
In those instances YOU could take control and protect your own media & convert them to contemporary formats, I'm pretty sure the same couldn't be true of things that require external activation
You're assuming that you'll still have access to the original media or a backup. But what if your only backup is on a CD at a time when CD drives are no longer in supply? How would you access the data if you cannot read the media? A more tangible current example would be games that only came on 5 1/4 inch floppies. How many mainstream stores still supply that form of hardware? (For that matter, do motherboards still support connections to them? I honestly don't know. I haven't used a 5 1/4 inch drive since the very early 1990s) Basically, short of die hard enthusiasts, your average PC user is not going to have access to that data anymore.

You did have a choice. You had plenty of time to convert the media to another format either another CD/flash based media or to a hard drive. No one else's fault but your own.
That's the beauty of software with no DRM or NOAUTH\NOCD patches. I have EVERY single game I have ever bought backed up onto my home server (server not required I just like instant access), I also have all the NOCD patches backed up as well. Absolutely NONE of the games I own that include DRM will require me to keep track of how many times I need to install it or keep track of how many times I uninstalled or require me to authenticate to a server.
It's all backed up to multiple external hard drives as well.
It always amuses me when people talk about the convenience of STEAM when I already have had that conveniece (and even better( for quite some time. Obviously it takes time to copy everything to the hard drive, space to back everything up etc etc. But it's all worth it if your care about your games. If you don't then you rely on a 3rd party service (like STEAM) and bitch like everyone else when it goes down because you didn't take the time to forsee these issues.

You did have a choice. You had plenty of time to convert the media to another format either another CD/flash based media or to a hard drive. No one else's fault but your own.
Again, lets say you did manage to make backups, now lets say that something beyond your control DESTROYS those backups and the original or, even more likely, a future OS/hardware renders your current data complete useless with zero chances of ever recovering that data. What then? The point being is that in the ultimate respect of losing access, Steam is no different to anything else. So it's high time people removed their tin foil hats and got over it.

Agreed which is why you should have multiple backups. Buy your games off of STEAM, back them up and verify that you have a solution that if STEAM goes down that you can still played your games.
NEVER rely on a single "backup". In this case concerning STEAM do not rely solely on STEAM. If you do then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Well it seems to be pretty much flawless apart from the pretty awful targetting but thats a design issue rather than compatibility
But the tinfoil keeps my head warm and stops THEM putting me in a microwave!!

This argument fails. You're stretching it way too far; you might as well argue that STEAM ROCKS because World War III might come and we'll nuclear bomb all the factories that produce CD / DVDs for some reason, along with assassinating all the scientists who know how to make them, hence we might have to come up with a totally new technology.
Today's established physical media isn't going to disappear overnight. Floppy Disks, which had it's hayday in the 80s and 90s, are long since gone for all practical purposes but still it is no problem finding hardware that can read that media. In fact, it is still standard on today's multicard readers for PCs. Readers exist that can even read the oldest media, like the 5.25" - easily obtainable from most major hardware outlets. You could pick one up coming back from work and be playing your 5.25" originals from 1984 in no time.
Certainly the same thing will happen when the next format change comes.

While I don't disagree with your overall point, I have to disagree with your assessment of the availability of floppy drives. Not only are 5.25 drives no longer manufactured for the retail market, pretty much the only way to find them now is through sources like E-Bay, flea markets and computer swap meets. No major retailer carries them anymore and it is getting to a point where it has become almost as hard to find 3.5 floppy drives. You can still find them in stores that specialize in computer parts and online, but good luck getting one from a general electronics retailer.

Today's established physical media isn't going to disappear overnight.
But *that's* the point. Steam isn't going anywhere over night either. It's currently helping Valve to net earnings of over $70 million and the user base is still expanding (even when factoring in multiple accounts held be one person, accounts made only for scamming and so forth).

You do have to admit that companies can go tits up with very little warning these days. Sure I don't think it'll happen but its a low probability high impact risk

Thanks for the infos. ;)
But apparently, the bumpmapping problem has NOT been fixed... This is really a shame...
Now I'm sure I will not re-buy it, not until it has been fixed.
Too bad for LucasArts, I'm sure plenty of gamers would re-buy...

Hang on, I'm a bit lost, whats wrong in those screens?
I've got everything turned up to full (on a Geforce Go 7600) and haven't noticed any problems

You shouldn't notice anything wrong, the problem only occurs on ATI cards and Nvidia 8XXX series and higher cards. The problem in those screenshots is the bump mapping ends up looking kind of like this weird gray camouflage effect. Its much more obvious when you you see the models in motion or in this screenshot:
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/1570/rcbump3.png

ahh okay thats not good then. Definitely don't get it myself though

Well then, since tracking down the details on my own time isn't a particularly high priority for me I'll file the existence of a patch under "unconfirmed rumor." Not to mention that without the patch being held in escrow the mere existence of it only provides very marginal risk mitigation beyond a patch not existing (due to potential rights issues and whatever complications may surround circumstances under which Steam shuts down). We're starting to just go in circles on this particular topic, however, so unless either of us has actual new information to bring into the discussion it's probably best to just move on.
While I'm quite willing to acknowledge that all media has associated risks, you're really stretching things here. As I've already said there's no fundamental difference between Steam and other distribution methods in terms of risk. However, this does not mean there are no differences at all. As I've also already said each distribution method has its own unique risks, and certain risks resonate more than others with different people. When someone says they are not using Steam because of some risk associated with it they are not making the claim that other distribution systems contain no risks, they are basically stating that the particular risk they brought up is enough of a concern to them to drop the value of the Steam game below the asking price. And it should go with saying (yet somehow never does) that different people will evaluate risks differently, and since we're working with imperfect information it's often tough to claim that one risk evaluation is more correct than another risk evaluation. You obviously decided that the risks associated with Steam weren't much of a concern. That's just fine, and given Steam's success there seem to be quite a few people who think the same. However, there are also a fair number of people who, like me, have concerns about the risks associated with Steam and those concerns drop the value of their products below the asking price. And this position should be just fine as well, and not have to be constantly defended. In one of your posts you mentioned people needing to get over certain things; I'd prefer not to have to throw those words back at you.