i have to say, despite my disappointment with EAs lack of support for older games, even as new as battlefield 2 and bf2142, and their barbaric DRM for Spore and Mass Effect and the like, I am pleased with them and the release of Dragon Age, no online bull(crud), no logging in everytime you play, it just might turn around my opinion of them

yea... but when you re-install, you'll probably have to re-do all the activations

Some of the DLC is DRM-protected, some isn't. The DRM-free DLC doesn't require authentication. The place you bought the game determines what bundled DLC you have and only some of those have DRM. All "premium" DLC has DRM and this even applies if they are bundled.
EDIT: using the magic of the internets, I present to you the mighty list of Dragon Age DRM! What DLC you start with is determined by a labyrinthine mess of what edition you bought and where you bought it with seemingly no way to have it all, so don't be surprised if you don't have some of the things on this list.
DRM free
The Edge
Embri's Many Pockets
Helm of the Deep
The Lucky Stone
The Lion's Paw
Amulet of the War Mage
The Wicked Oath
Blood Dragon Armour
Mark of Vigilance
DRM-protected (even if bundled)
The Stone Prisoner
Warden's Keep
Feral Wolf Charm
Guildmaster's Belt
Band of Fire
Dalish Promise Ring
Collector's Edition Item pack (Bergen’s Honor, Grimoire of the Frozen Wastes, Final Reason)
Memory Band
EDIT EDIT: note that all future "premium" DLC will also fall into the DRM-protected category.

thank you, very much.
I don't know if this is bioware or ea, but I'm not happy about it. :(
I'm also not happy about that dude who shows up in camp and begs you to buy dlc.
like, I bought the dlc, when I preordered, so it doesn't necessarily affect me, but I'm still pissed off about it and I can understand how someone who doesn't know what is going on sees it.

<invoke EA mode>
Of course there is! You just pay this moderate fee of $60US to each of a dozen different merchants. Of course depending on the merchant's location they may use another currency, and the price may be accordingly changed, but seeing the already low price, these fine items are surely worth, it don't you agree?

Me too, very unhappy tbh. I found that a very cheeky and underhanded way of adding content to whats meant to be full game. I have no problem with them charging for large mods but the idea that you have these sorts of adverts in the game without the extra content make you feel like you have an incomplete product. which is not what i paid for. some bigwig in an office needs a good kick up the arse for this idea....
lets hope this doesnt catch on. can you imagine:
start a game
would you like to start a quest?
that'll be £5 please...
congratulations on finishing the quest, would you like another quest
that'll be £5 please...
armour? weapons? ammo?!! I mean seriously... what a shit place we could be in if this new "bussiness model" takes off
:'(

The camp-DLC dude would probably be annoying if I hadn't immediately purchased said DLC.
But I think people are making a big deal out out of the pre-order bonuses. "Oh, boo hoo. I get good starting item A instead of good starting item B!". If it were a gameplay changing feature or if it had to do with how you can customize the appearance of your character (I would be REALLY pissed if that british site hadn't made the Blood Angels DLC freeware for DoW2) I could see some reason to complain. But honestly, most of the store exclusive items I have seen aren't that great. The "really good" stuff come from the DLCs, pre-ordering the game, and playing Journeys. Stuff which you could do no matter where you purchased the game from.
Plus, they have to give the digital copies an incentive. That is a damned fine case and a damned fine cloth map. Would it have been any more fair to make the digital versions the second-class copies?

Er. sell the digital download version cheaper instead?

Does anyone have the collector's edition? I'm picking it up this week no matter what and I'm wondering what the map is like?

I'm planning on picking this game up and was playing Journeys in the meantime to get some of the items, but no matter what I do I can't log into the server (and yes I have a bioware account). Really annoying, beat the game as a rogue and I can't log in to register the stuff. It just says it can't connect each time.

Then you run into problems with pissing off publishers and retailers. Retail outlets are terrified of digital distribution. If you thought Impulse and D2D boycotting MW2 because of Steam was maybe a bit excessive, imagine what Gamestop and Best Buy will do if the markup isn't applied to the digital releases?
Plus, EA is a publisher. They likely get less money from a digital distribution sale than they would from selling a box.

Here's a shot of it beside the case (for size reference, the case is the size of a regular) DVD case):
Clicky

Or check out this thread.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/8/index/110849/1
Edit: Granted this is only if you have the PC version, but it's something.

is anyone elses online profile not updating for their character?

I actually turned all of that off. So I'm not sure. Sorry.