I disagree with Lost Coast not looking good, it's easily one of the better programs to beat it's way through my X1900XT, and it is truly stunning. However, I do agree that a year to design that level is poor management at best. Valve does take extended liberties with their dev cycles, but I've always felt that I'm getting higher quality product that easily updates itself often. Steam, I have a love/hate relationship with that distro method, there are a few things that annoy me, but buying things off of steam has always been rediculously painless and quick. I pity the people who bought the boxed HL2, and waited days for it to be validated, just as I pity the people who can't configure port forwarding for steam.
TF2 has been rediculous though, I've played TF since it's Quake 1 days, and I'm more than a little dissapointed at the delays. To be honest, I don't think I'll care when it comes out.
As for EA, I can't play my BF2142 for more than a few minutes since the last patch. Glad I invested $50 in it. I refuse to buy anything for the PC from Ubi Soft since they were the biggest backers of Starforce. When starforce dissapears from their lineup completely, I will buy those games if I feel so inclined. (As of this writing, it appears that they will no longer be supporting it, but we shall see.)