Dear Gabe,
Firstly let me get the gushing fanboy stuff out of the way - love the games, can't wait for the new ones, please all pat yourselves on the back!
I've just spent the last... far too long talking to people online, most of whom aren't fans of stuff like copy protection, spyware, closed source software, you know the types. The discussion raised some interesting points and we would all love to hear your views on them (and they relate to Valve expanding their market and maybe making more money, so I figure you have an interest in them):
1. Have you considered releasing older games (say maybe Half-Life 2) without the mandatory Steam stipulation - once release has long gone, anti-piracy measures aren't really worth much, and a shelf release that didn't require an internet connection to play would go a long way in a lot of areas (not just dial-up areas, but amongst people who don't like That Sort Of Thing).
2. On a similar but probably less likely note, what's the chances of the even older games (Half-Life) being released for free on Steam as a nice promotional thing?
3. Back to more realistic things, a lot of Linux users play your games using WINE - in case you haven't heard of it, it's basically (but not technically accurately) a Windows emulator, so they can run Windows programs in Linux. Half-Life 2 etc do work, but compatability isn't 100% and often new things break it. Would you consider improving compatibility with WINE, for example contributing to the WINE project itself, or just liasing with developers to go over the details of what in WINE needs to be implemented for your games to work?
I understand this is a long email and you're a busy man so thank you for reading it, we look forward to your replies.
Best regards for the future,
James Sanderson