DRM in general is terrible, though. It adds no value at all for legitimate consumers, and in fact makes their experience far worse than it is for those that pirate your games (seriously mis-aligned incentives there!)
Steam is DRM, of course, and it definitely causes hassle for some users. Where Steam is different however is that it does actually add value, and for many users (myself included) the trade-off is worth it. I wouldn't dismiss software out of hand because "it's DRM" - there's a whole spectrum of good and bad software within that definition.
I'm not sure what you mean. How does DRM add any value to Steam? I.e. what would be worse there if it could drop DRM?
The way I see it - DRM never adds any value, and it's a two fold problem. The practical aspect of it - it degrades usability for legitimate users as you pointed out. And the ethical aspect of it - it's a preemptive policing technology that treats users as potential criminals by default. In my opinion it doesn't have any reason to exist at all. And actually you can dismiss it just for the fact of promoting DRM, since DRM means disrespect to users by default.
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that the DRM in Steam adds value - but taking Steam as a whole, Steam itself is viewable as a DRM system that adds value (in all the ways that make Steam awesome).
The core DRM in Steam (if we ignore the flakiness of offline mode at least) is clever, consumer-friendly, and unbeatable: You simply do not deliver the executable to users until the game is out (but they can pre-load assets, which can optionally be encrypted to stop any pre-release leaks from them).
That's not to say Steam might be marginally improved without that, but in my day to day it has never caused any problems that wouldn't exist without it - in contrast, CD ROM based DRM such as Securom has caused me several headaches.
It's also worth mentioning that the DRM on Steam is opt-in: While the big publishers see fit to ship extra DRM on top of Steam, many of the games I have installed through Steam will actually run fine if I launch the executable directly, without starting Steam.
Steam is DRM, of course, and it definitely causes hassle for some users. Where Steam is different however is that it does actually add value, and for many users (myself included) the trade-off is worth it. I wouldn't dismiss software out of hand because "it's DRM" - there's a whole spectrum of good and bad software within that definition.