Can't login to re-download MM digital edition

Hi folks, I think there are two possible problems here:
1) The extra masked characters that show up when you enter a password. Apparently this is a very old security measure, and in any case, it's causing too great a hassle for our customers, so we're working on disabling it.
2) The bigger issue is that our cart is fooling customers into thinking they've created accounts when they actually haven't. Essentially, customers provide all the information that would be required for a permanent account, but haven't opted to create the account. They think they have, but every time we check to see if they're in our customer database, they haven't.

I could really use input on this latter issue; it's the #1 customer service request we've had by far. I've always assumed that customers would greatly prefer to have the option of creating a guest account. But each transaction includes a downloadable digital edition, and it's really hard to make the file accessible to customers without permanent accounts, especially when session cookies have expired or when customers want to download the file to another computer.

So... Will requiring our customers to create permanent accounts cause an insurrection? :-) I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.