Yes, unfortunately metered accounts are the way of the future in the States, since too few are consuming too much bandwidth at the same price the masses pay just to check email. It's more fair I suppose, though it will hurt my download activity. Luckily my university network will probably not have such restrictions, so I'll be ok for the next few years.

I haven't had HL2 installed on any of my machines since I finished Episode One in Summer 06. I had CS:S installed, but beyond the core files the two games differ too much in content that they require separate installs I think.