I, honestly, really don't care about it.
Our internet goes down from time to time - sure. But I'm currently always online anytime I play on my 360 anyway due to XBOX Live. Likewise on the (rare) occassion I'm on my PS3 it's usually connected to PSN.
I have a smartphone that's nearly always connected to the internet via WiFi.
This really doesn't rock my world.
My PC is pretty much always connected to the internet. It's no different to how everyone's sacred Valve have Steam setup. If you forgot to authorise for offline play then you're trout out of luck if you want to install and play a new game (or even half of the more modern titles). Last time I moved house I had no internet and was like oh I'll finally get around to installing Modern Warfare 2 - nope - couldn't, because Steam wouldn't let me until I connected to the internet. Of course, gamers seem to be oblivious to the fact that Valve, the Holy Grail, pulls a lot of the same trout that other companies get internet hate trains levelled at them for.
Also Diablo 3? People are still going on about that? Bar a couple of days of issues due to the game vastly exceeding how much they were expecting it to sell it was fine. Unlike Sim City it's also been patched numerous times since it's release and is a far better game as a result - compared to Sim City who's first "major" content is Nissan product placement DLC. The obvious main reason D3 was always online was due to Auction House and Real Money Auction House to provide more control over duping - Blizzard knew from D2 that there was a vast culture of selling items via external websites for money so they put that feature ingame to reduce the amount of people losing their accounts via such websites. They've even come out and admitted that the Auction House didn't really pan out the way they expected it too which is why they're not pushing similar functionality in the console version.
If always online brings additional functionality and benefits like I'm used too from MMOs, Steam and even from the current LIVE/Network services then fine.
I also vaguely recall reading something regarding that the 720 only has to be online when you boot up a game, not for the entire duration of your game session?