can someone tell me what exactly have Starforce done to deserve this?
Short version:
1) They put a bunch of low-level device driver filters in, which can interfere with perfectly legitimate operations. Some people find that they can no longer burn certain types of CD from their CD burning apps, for example. I'm not talking about illegal copies of copyrighted game media, but no CD's at all. Ot is known to break compatibility and take away functionality on many systems
2) Uninstalling the 'protected' game will NOT remove the starforce drivers themselves, so if your system is bungled up you either have to get a 3rd party hack to forcefully remove it, or you get to format & reinstall.
3) When one of the game publishing places (forgot the name of it) purposefully decided not to implement any copyright protection schemes like starforce because they said they didn't think they should treat their customer base like criminals, starforce employees 'proved' that that was a bad choice by posting direct links to pirated downloads of the game in question on their official bulletin boards.
remiscent of the old "nice place you have here. shame if anything happened to it. By the way, can I interest you in some fire insurance?")