I always buy full licenses. I just don't feel comfortable to have essentially my money controlled by someone else, and something bas simple as a network outage bricks my software.
Note that you could also be screwed with full licenses if the software uses some kind of online activation. If a regular check is required by your particular software, and the server gets permanently unaccessible, you could get eventually "kicked out".
Full version/license doesn't always help. They have ways and that is what killed my Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 software. At over $1K, it was a lot to spend for a hobby but I had a lot of baby videos to edit and wanted to make them well, so I got full feature version and with full license, phone activated with a key and all that.
Each time I swap disc or memory, it asked for reactivation. I use the key code and all is well.
One day, it asked me to re-activate, probably acted on some date-driven parameter. So, I reentered the key code. This time, the same key code no longer work and force an on-line re-activation. The on-line reactivation URL no longer function, the phone number no longer worked... I called the main number... so on so on and each time they just suggest I should buy another full license for the latest version. All my edited segment stored in the V1.5 format was lost. I later found a way to use the "trial mode" to run the old version for a limited time to export. By then, I totally lost my confidence and interest in Adobe products.
Another video package from a different company of the same era (Visual Communicator) ran into a similar but different issue. One day, the fully licensed and activated software displays a "I am expired - reactivation required" message. I followed the link, download the upgrade, paid for a new key code for the newer version (V2, if I recalled correctly). Ok, the new install said it can't until after I delete V1 and say "click OK to delete". So I did, and it begin the V2 install - one screen later, it said "it can't upgrade because I don't have an activated V1 on the system to upgrade"... Again, phone call loop that went no where... I ended up without a working version of V1 or V2.
I came to think of on-line activation as evil.
The last time I purchased a package requiring activation, I paid in full and then went on line to find a crack. I have the full menu, the full set of DVD, but I run the cracked version instead.