I don't think they're pulling a fast one. If one reads their "Bill of Rights," it clearly takes a more conciliary tone rather than a hardline anti-DRM stance. There's nothing in there about abolishing DRM, if fact it clearly explicitly states it believes in the right of developers to protect their game somehow. It merely advocates methods more friendly to the consumer (including openess, buglessness, and support). I believe Impulse is true to the bill.
The just need to improve the catalog and ease-of-use a little more imo. And make it more clear exactly which 3rd party games use 3rd party DRM, what DRM they use, what files and registry entries those DRM schemes use, exactly how they work, and where to go to seek support for DRM issues.

and how to remoe the DRM after uninstalling the game

That would be handy. In some cases only partially removing the DRM can break it, meaning the game will call you a filthy, greedy pirate when you try to reinstall it.

Hell, I don't even think retail games tell you that...

I disagree. The Bill of Rights seemed to me to be talking more about things like SecuROM that install on your system without mentioning anything (it's kinda hard to 'accidentally' install Impulse), and then hang around even after you remove the game from your system that it installed with. I don't look at something like Impulse any differently than I do a simple serial key system. It's quick, it's painless, and if I want it gone, it's gone...without rendering my game unplayable.

Hey I never said it was realistic now did I?

reclaimyourgame.com tells you how to remove DRM after unistalling....

well yes but the point is you shouldn't NEED to consult third party sites to remove stuff that should be removed during the uninstall of a game.
I mean how fucking hard would it be for DRM-X to list the installed games that require it and each time one is uninstalled, it can check the table, if there's other games, it stays and if not, it goes as well.
Answer: Not hard at all, it'd take all of 20 minutes

i don't know if that works

Eh... DoW: Dark Crusade (I presume you're talking about it, since it was the 4$ deal, only Dark Avatar on Impulse is GalCiv II for 30$) does not have any DRM in the first place, not even retail version - I installed DC on multiple computers and we were happily playing over LAN... No CD checks, no serial numbers, nothing

I thought it did have a CD key. Maybe I'm thinking of adding the CD keys from the other games to unlock the other armies

Don't even remind me. I spent way too much time playing that game over Christmas break. And yea, that was a pretty awesome sell as I got Gal Civ for dirt cheap as well.

lol what a coincidence. I just got Galciv II too recently (though not from Impulse). I'm quite scared to touch it, as Space Rangers 2 nearly ruined my life - 4 hours of sleep before work the next day is real suckage

Unless ofcourse they go belly up and you no longer can install your game where as the regular serial does not require online authenitication. I've been playing computer games for far to long to be comfortable with any solution the requires the publisher or developer to be around for any lenght of time.
DarrkPhoenix- We seem to have reached an understanding, sorry if I was a tad agressive earlier. Yes I'll have to agree with that Stardock has a more compelling attitude towards their customers than a lot of other publishers.

Nothing to be sorry about. You provided me with information I wasn't aware of, and in doing so changed my opinion on the matter. That makes our brief discussion very worthwhile as far as I'm concerned.