What in the world does the EU have anything to do with it? I use Steam, actually.
This is about the fact that it is stupid to force Steam on everyone, when it's clearly not needed.
Half of the player base uses Steam. I am sure if they wanted stats, they would use Steam.
The bottom line is, you don't know how forcing Steam globally would affect the player base; I don't think now is the time for taking risks that may adversely affect the amount of players.
Honestly, I don't give 2 flying fucks about the NEC server, as there's hardly any players there most of the time. Let him run his server how he wants.