Hi MishaSherpa,
I don't have any problems with my login, I just gave up after 2 minutes waiting for the login screen. I have timed the delay and it turns out that it takes on average 3 min and 20 sec with my ethernet cable disconnected and roughly 1 min to get to login screen when the ethernet cable is connected. I don't know if these same times others experienced (I have an older pc with Intel DualCore and 2GB of RAM) and I know that is not a problem with my pc, because I used other Linux flavors and on most I get a login screen within 30 sec.
I don't know if you are part of the Mint team (legal or otherwise, because I see that your are doing the most defending regarding the problem with this "call-home" feature).
The way Mint have implemented this is a bit strange, and it reminds me of facebook when it come on the scene, and started calling home even before I logged into windows (yeah I use windows sometime). From the press reports we have seen lately (I hope that you saw them too), a feature that "calls-home" is not viewed with kind eyes by the users that likes their privacy. It looks to me that Mint is turning into windows with all the windows ports opened by default, and maybe other hidden features that we, users didn't find yet. Rememeber what Richard Stallman from Free Software Fundation said about ubuntu that is hidding shell code into its kernel.
On a hypothetical view, let's say that I build some fancy armchair that does lots of cool things (even making breakky when you play games
, etc) and is very popular with users. I offer you this armchair for free, and you happy accept the offer, take it home, and when you plan of using it, you get people knocking on your door, offering you some other stuff. You then ask yourself how this people knew that you got a new fancy armchair, where you live, your contact details and such. At this moment you call me, very angry that I have invaded your privacy and ask me if that armchair has other hidding features, I will say that it doesn't, and you keep using it, without knowing that the armchair monitors everything you do and use......is this a scary hypothetical story for you? Unfortunately is very real today......
With popularity comes greater responsability to your users, fans......(not sponsors, cos those they chew you and spit you out when you are not useful anymore, and move to the next number in their list).