I don't know what your point is. Just because a program has only basic protection against piracy, does not mean that its bad.
Than what proof exists that tells me, as a potential customer that their tool(s) is (are) the best on the market if they care little about their own tool(s)'s protection, let along my protection?
That's understandable, because IMF does not have very good behaviour blocking and Avast is nowhere near as bad as if you make it out to be.
I have used Avast (many of its versions, free and paid ones too), and from my experience switching to Eset was single-handedly the best choiche I have ever made. Avast even back then had a questionable protection (granted, they had their gold days, but we all know what's true about good things, right?)... Now, their "protected and super-secure browser" was found not only to be anything but protected and super-secure, and it was used for god knows how long as a data gathering tool, and suprise-suprise it was sold to the highest bidder....
Which is also the case for most software publishers.
Yes, but most software publishers don't make so-called "pc care" and antivirus tools. Those who works in the security field gets audited wether they like it or not, otherwise who would buy their goods?