It's already been mentioned elsewhere that making the patcher password protected might be in the best interest of the game, but along the same lines, I'm wondering:

Does the patcher check for DirectX capatability? Or does the game simply assume that since there was a DirectX installer in the game package, that people would run it rather than bypass it?

If it's not checked, it might be a good idea to implement. Just to be sure that people actually install what the game needs.