I have had as many problems with Steam as most of the people here on this board - and yeah, it has pissed me off and made me curse Valve for not getting it right first time.
But this is the way things are going. Steam is a content provider for the Internet. As a developer, imagine if you could send your programs over the Internet and have them protected from piracy in a program like Steam? I am just surprised Microsoft hasn't added it to Windows's yet!