You won't be forced into anything. It's weird how folks think they're being railroaded into a particular product or service just because it's Google. As many other people have said elsewhere, if you don't like Google (and lots and lots of people don't), then simply don't use their products. I'm trying to make sure that I'm not too integrated with their complete eco-system (don't like apps for instance) for just that reason.
So if you have invested years into You Tube, you don't want to associate your real name or other accounts with your you tube persona for either professional, artistic or business reasons. Now all those years are getting trashed by a useless (to the user, to Google possibly useful or maybe just casually destructive to to the company by trashing it's user base) push to integrate your YouTube persona into a whole Google ecosystem and you aren't being railroaded? Your solution to years worth of investment into a product that is now becoming rapidly useless to many members is "simply don't use their product?" Sounds like a shitty solution for both the user and for Google's long term prospects. So why are you a Google apologist and why can't you see that forcing an undesirable ecosystem on users that are invested in a product line is undesirable for many users.
Um...you don't have to associate your real name at all. You get the option when setting up the G+ account and linking it. My YouTube account is completely separate from my real name and will remain so. If I want to, I can also set up another Google account (which I have done) to protect this situation even further. Please don't assume that I am an 'apologist' for anything or anyone. I am not.
Every time I log into YouTube I'm asked to change my username to my gmail name, I decline every time. What happens when if I accidentally click yes one time? Can I change it back? There is no opt out that I can find. Why would I want to decline every time I use YouTube? To leave a review for an app on the Google play store I now need to use the name that the account is associated with. I have no desire to make a searchable inventory of my opinions on app's that is associated with my Gmail account. The day that started was the day that I stopped using play store when an app was available on any other way. I would like to both offer useful feedback to developers and both endorsements or warning to other users but not at the cost of my anonymity. If there is a way to get Google to stop trying to associate my YouTube account with my other Google accounts I'd use it, but it's not very apparent. Just like the Google play changes and supported by comments from top management Google isn't interested in anonymity, it's interested in people using their real names and integrating services under one tent. It's more than reasonable to find this thrust annoying and undesirable, your inability to see that and your defense of their inconvenient annoying policies very much makes you an apologist.