To be fair, that's more a problem with really awful internet providers than Steam. Admittedly, being able to reconfigure steam's downloads would be nice.
Also, I'm reasonably certain that Steam only polices its online games. I've used cheat programs extensively in Just Cause 2 with no repercussions.
@Dishonored: I noticed that the game tracks never being seen at all, but I'm curious as to precisely what that changes.