Steam Refunds--Good or Bad?

Lately Steam has been at the center of some pretty divisive issues in gaming.  The first round saw them introduce a system that would have made many mods a commodity players paid for rather than the free creations that they currently are.  There was much backlash and they eventually decided to remove the paid for mods and do some more exploration.  The newest round of controversy has to do with a decision announced last week that they would refund any game purchased on Steam for any reason.  This is a very bold move and one that has sparked much discussion.

Initially I thought this sounded like a really great idea.  You should be able to return a product to the store where you bought it from even if it is a digital platform like Steam.  This would also allow players to get their money back for any wide variety of reasons--don't like a game, game doesn't run on your machine, game isn't what you expected, etc.  If you are thinking of returning a game there are a few conditions--you can't have played a game for more than two hours and must request a refund within two weeks of purchase.  One nice part of this policy is that you can also return a previously purchased game if it then goes on sale--probably within the same time period.

Here's a video where Jamin from PBS's "Game Show" shares his thoughts on this new policy:

From a consumer standpoint this is a really big step and seems to be one that a lot of the big distributors are now instituting.  Not all of this refund policy is a good thing though.  Developers of smaller games are worried about people abusing the system.  What about the games that are two hours or less in length?  Couldn't I just play a game all the way through and get a refund?  I wouldn't do that but according to this policy there is nothing to stop me from getting a refund.  This could have a big impact on the makers of smaller, shorter games.  In a statement Steam said they would crackdown on people who abuse the policy...but how easy is that going to be?  Would this policy keep smaller Indie projects from appearing on Steam?

I'm interested to see how this thing plays out and if Steam backtracks or decides to shore up their policy.  How many games are actually being returned?  I can only think of one that I would want to return (I'm looking at you Spelunky).