> Maybe we were given a stunted version to test, but on Google's own OS 
> and Mac OSX we had to deliberately drag & drop each file that we wanted 
> saved to the local computer for access offline.

I thought I would just verify that, on my Mac OS X (10.7.4) Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro with Google drive installed, I can see the data in the google drive when I am disconnected from the network. I have turned off wireless, unplugged the network, and verified that no network connections exist, and still I can access data in the google drive folder :) So unless I understand you incorrectly, they did probably give you a stunted or buggy version.

But yeah, essentially, you have to implicitly trust these companies to be arbiters of your information; I don't, so right now it's more of a novelty that allows me to share some interesting things with friends.

-Chris