Why are you blaming Steam? Bethesda/Obsidian Made the patch! Steam just added it because they were asked to.
He's blaming steam because when he plays a game through there he can't choose when to patch, whereas with a non-steam game he would be able to decide when would be best time to patch, and so would be able to wait untill an updated trainer came out that matched the version patch he wanted to run.
It's not the patch that's the problem it's that he's lost control of the overall process.
And yes, I agree, steam sucks, and I won't play a game that I can only access through it.
In fact, I won't play any game which includes any superfluious process which has no direct benefit to me.