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StarCraft II Closed Beta Begins
Blizzard announced today that the multiplayer beta test for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is now underway. The client downloader is available through Battle.net for people who have received invites, and the system requirements have been posted as well. A list of known issues is up on the official forums. StarCraft II and the revamped Battle.net are planned for release "in the first half of 2010."
Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.
They've obviously also not done any market research on how big that percentage of the population might be, and I doubt you have either.
Out of me and the dozen friends that play Starcraft, exactly zero of us play on Battle.net if we don't have to. During high school, all of us regularly played without access to an internet connection - one still regularly gets a group together in a local church gymnasium to play Starcraft LAN games, and there's definitely no internet access there. I guess they'll stick with the original even after the sequel comes out, because they won't be able to play the sequel together.
The "small percentage" is a lot larger than you think it is. Starcraft II will not be nearly as popular if it prevents playing multiplayer without internet access.