Thank you for your response. So, in reality there is no offline mode built into QB Desktop. The only way to affect an offline mode is to run from a machine that is not connected to the Internet in any way. I'm sure you can understand the impracticality of that for most users. 

As for passing this issue on to Intuit engineers, I think that has been enough said in this thread over the past couple of years for your engineers, and executives at Intuit, to be aware that this requirement for QB Desktop users to log into an Intuit account in order to use the product is emphatically unwanted. I can also appreciate that Intuit apparently has reasons to want it, and to refuse to remove it. This is a standoff that may continue. Some users will eventually move on to other software that doesn't require the logon. Some will give in and switch to Intuit's, or a competitor's, cloud software. Some will continue to apply the Alt+F4 workaround until a better option surfaces.