First of all, No-CD are NOT cracks.
A No-CD patch is made to avoid wasting of time to regular users that
have bought the original game and NOT to let everyone to use copied games.
Indeed the main problem is located in the methods used by the games
vendors to "protect" their games.
A CD protection means that everytime you want to play with your preferred
original game, you MUST lost time finding the CD, removing any previous
CD, inserting it in the drive, waiting some seconds to let the hardware
to load it, listening the frustrating noise of the drive and finally
launching the game hoping the CD is not damaged or the drive is able to
read it at full speed.
How many times you wanted to play a game but then you didn't because
you was too lazy to find the CD?
Then suppose to have an enough old game that requires the CD to run but
the CD is a bit damaged or your Cd drive is not able to read it, what
you do?
How much times you have broken pieces of your rooms and computer
because you was too much angry with your CD and CD drive?
But it's not finished here because encrypted executables (safedisc,
securom and so on) and anti-debugging techniques are incredibly bad for
who want to try to patch or solve a problem in a no longer supported
game or understanding where is located a possible bug found in the game
without considering the horrible thing of having a rootkit driver used
only for running a game... is this a joke?
That's my thought about No-CD and CD protections.