I don't think there's a reason to generally hate Steam - if you don't like it, don't use it.
I personally use both Steam and GoG and they kind of complement each other imo

Well, yes, "don't like it, don't use it" should be basic common sense. Of course, everyone always thinks "those kinds of problems almost never happen, there's no way it would ever happen to me"... until it does, and then we get another thread like this. I think the two overarching features of people that contribute to this is that most people are too trusting that companies will treat them fairly, and that people generally suck at risk analysis. However, many people would probably consider me overly skeptical, cynical, and paranoid, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

If you're a potential/new costumer, yes. But many of the complaints came from longtime users who were generally content with Steam's service, then...BAM! Suddenly your account got locked/Hidden DRM in new games/1$=1 Euro/L4D2 announced/(insert other complaints here).

I've been a member since 2007 and my account was not banned, and I've not bought any DRM infested game. You see why I personally don't mind Steam?

I don't think technological ignorance is the issue. People are angry with themselves and say things they don't mean in an effort to externalize those feelings. It's really a matter of not doing the research before jumping into a purchase and then feeling burned when it's not what they imagined. Especially in these days of the "information superhighway," there is just no excuse for that. Heaven forbid these people ever buy a house or a car.

2007 is not that long, i've had mine since 2004 so you can imagine that having your account disabled suddenly comes as quite a shock.

I grabbed my Steam account some time between 2004 and 2006. Used my Blue Shift key to get Counterstrike and had some fun.
Fast forward a few years, and I am sort of in the mood for HL2. I go to log-in to Steam (to try the demo) and my account doesn't exist. Apparently the account timed out or something (my nick wasn't even in use), but the key had already been logged as used.
Fortunately, my 8500 LE apparently came with Half-life, so I already had a spare key. But was still annoying.
And yet, even having had my account (and a game) wiped without pissing them off, I am not a person morally opposed to Steam? Why? Because they are just a retail outlet, like any other.
It is the same reason that I don't boycott Best Buy because they made me exchange Mechwarrior 4 times because they put the same two defective copies on the shelf (I wrote down the serial the third time). Nothing is perfect.

I was never a strong supporter and I always realized the issues Steam has, I put that in the OP. If you look back on other comments of mine in other threads, you will see I have said things before about Steam having too much power over your purchases and things of that nature.
Of course these feelings got stronger when I personally experienced more problems myself, I think that is only natural.

Obviously you have no idea what the problem is that this thread is discussing.

I generally like Steam but I have come to realize in recent months that Steam definitely has some issues, mainly with QA control on Valve's end of the deal. Their QA is almost as bad as Nintendo's (just walk into a gamestop and look at all the $5 shovelware on the shelf and you'll understand what I mean). Valve needs to step up and be a little more heavy-handed with these publishers.
While I have not had problems with DRM on Steam, what I -have- had problems with is old games not working properly. I bought the Jedi Knight pack and thus far have not been able to get Jedi Knight and Mysteries of the Sith to launch. All other games I have on Steam work but those two do not...my retail copies do not work either. If Steam were GOG they would not have allowed that on their system, and there are many many users having many issues with those two games and nothing has been done to fix them.

Fully agreed on that point. Activation-Model DRM aside, I will almost always go with Impulse over Steam. Why? At the very least, Steam's overlay adds another level of stuff that can go wrong with games. Don't get me wrong, I love that overlay (since it tends to work, unlike XFire), but I would rather not deal with broken indie games or broken older games because of it (or other pseudo-Steam issues).
Plus, I bought JA2 from them a while back. Fun bug where money doesn't work right, removing half the fun of the game.

I couldn't get the Space Quest or King's Quest collections to run in Steam. Fortunately I have DOSBox so it was not actually a problem. Still, kind of embarrassing for Activision, I would think.

Steam is not like Xbox (thank God)... they don't certify games or anything like that, they are just a store. Their community features and such sort of make that seem wrong, but it is true, they are a simple store.
One of the greatest things about the PC and in fact the main reason I am a PC gamer is because it is an open platform with no Microsoft or Sony telling you what you can and cannot buy or play. If Steam switched to a certificaton/controling/closed platform system, this would all change.
The more we make the PC like a console, the less it is PC gaming, basically. Unfortunately, I feel this is inevitable.

The inverse of that is that every single thing on the xbox marketplace works, even crap from the very early marketplace days that noone but me is interested in. Certification has its benefits

There being like 9 pages of comments I haven't read through I'm sure this has already been said:
What you should have told them is that you'd spend the money on OTHER STEAM PRODUCTS while bitching and bitching and threatening to call the credit card company.