EA Toning Down Spore DRM, Trying for "Acceptable" This Time Around

After fighting the ill-advised fight for nearly two weeks, the powers that be at EA finally decided to take a walk on the sane side. In a statement released today, EA promised to add a touch of intelligent design to Spore's ridiculously restrictive DRM by doing the following:  

•   Expand the number of eligible machines from three to five.
•   Continue to offer channels to request additional activations where warranted.
•   Expedite our development of a system that will allow consumers to de-authorize machines and move authorizations to new machines. When this system goes online, it will effectively give players direct control to manage their authorizations between an unlimited number of machines.

Additionally, the Spore Online Account system will soon receive an overhaul -- allowing up to five unique identities per account.

The question, however, is whether any of this actually matters. Spore is still wrapped in the slimy tendrils of DRM, and just because EA decided to lop off a few doesn't mean the publisher has mopped up all of the bad blood it's managed to accrue. But what's your take?

(P.S. Does anyone else find it incredibly coincidental that this happened on International Talk Like A Pirate Day?)