I always disliked Ubisoft because of their DRM dating back to using Starforce in their games back in 2005.
Heroes 6 was a game I very much looked forward to and I still think it would be fun to play. A combination of bugs and a terrible online service cause many frusterations for players of that game, making it a deal breaker to me. I want to access all the features offline, and I don't want to risk losing my save game in order to play online. Plus, their servers are very spotty with frequent downtime if you do choose to play online.
I think Ubisoft is just doing a publicity stunt to try and reverse their image. They are not rethinking their policies or turning a new leaf, they are carefully phrasing their DRM system to make it seem less bad but it is the same old crap. Expect plenty of complaints in the future.
These "changes" will not effect older games and they will not effect ALL future Ubisoft games, only certain ones such as Assassins Creed which is their cash cow.