Stargazer, I've GOT Sins. I play it regularly. It does NOT need online activation. I've never even been online while playing it. It's really easy to find (legal) downloads of the patches, too, so you don't have to register anywhere to get those, either.
Have you blocked Sins (or specifically SDActivate.exe) from network access using a decent third party firewall? If not, then the activation could happen without you noticing, unless you disconnect completely from the Internet. One sure-fire method of checking is to disconnect, delete the sig.bin file in the Sins folder and then run it.
I know you can get patches elsewhere (though future ones will be
Impulse only) but my experience with GalCiv2 is that they still include the activation requirement.
For the rest though, I agree with your agreement.
