If you want to buy and play "classic" games, you'd have much more luck getting them from Good Old Games, since they put the work into tweaking them to work with modern machines.

Quite. Either way, it's certainly not in the "best interests of PC gamers."

Why, exactly, is it such a bad idea?

Because it means sacrificing long-term sales in favour of a perceived increase in short-term profitability. I can't think of any DRM scheme (barring those which use remote servers for content/functionality) which hasn't been cracked or bypassed within a couple of months of the game's release. Most sales in that initial period would be to fans and others who were anticipating the game who wouldn't want to pirate it anyway. And there will still be those who are put off from buying the game due to the inclusion of draconian DRM measures.

It doesn't matter how comfortable a concept it is to the powers that be; it's still a bad idea.

Is DRM doing what *they* want it to? They wouldn't keep using it, if it weren't, even if it merely gives them that warm fuzzy feeling.

You appear to assume that if DRM weren't doing what they expected, that they would be aware of such. If they rely upon such risible studies and statistics as those trotted out by the BSA, **AA and similar organisations then they're more likely to simply hear what they want to hear.

They shouldn't focus on any particular 'genre' of leak, but rather prioritise those which it would best serve the public interest to publicise. (Typically whichever leaks are the most potentially damaging to the corresponding authorities, and thus what said authorities would be keenest to keep silenced.)