One thing about Impulse that people don't often talk about (and I've told Gamestop they should push this a lot more) is that it is faster than any other service. And I don't mean a little bit faster but massively faster.
I feel for people who bought BF3 directly via Origin instead of Impulse. With Impulse, the download speed is typically limited by your connection. By contrast,with other services, I get around 300k per second typically. YMMV.
But the speed difference means I get to play the game that afternoon and not the next day.
...
Now, that said, Stardock games are going to be available through its own service as well as Impulse and will be using the fastest download CDN we can find to ensure our games download at ludicrous speed.
That is not even the case anymore. I used their new service to DL a game a few days ago- I was getting around 30% of the speed I got with Steam. It used to be Impulse was slightly faster. I'm sure the stuff under the hood is still there, but it's not working right now.
It's clear to me that the service has degraded in many ways since Gamestop took over, maybe they'll fix things, but given Gamestop's reputation, I don't trust them to do it, and I'm not going to wait around for it. I was perfectly willing to give Gamestop a fair chance, but I feel like I have, and they've blown it.
Unfortunately, monopoly ISP's in the US have throttled back speed improvements, so being faster isn't as big a benefit as it should be, unless you live in a FIOS area. I kinda wish we saw more political pressure on this, but we won't until we get a new generation in power.