I'll admit: I have a fairly strong anti-Adobe prior (actually a posterior learned from previous interactions with Adobe and Adobe products). But I still think that is better than the "eager to speak comfort to power" shills/defenders. Also, in this day an age can we fairly test this claim: what if Adobe is running an A/B test on forced install (which would cause some fraction of people to see no forced install)?
Why do I feel I have a stake in this? Because I am the stupid asshole who is going to have to try and uninstall this from family computers after it breaks something (Adobe being historically very clumsy). It isn't really relevant to my experience if my relatives were forced into it or merely tricked into it.
There is no need to dilute the large body of legitimate Adobe criticisms with lies.
Q: I do not have a Facebook account. Can I use Playpanel?
A: To use Playpanel, you may use your Facebook account or your Adobe ID account.
Q: What are the system requirements for Playpanel?
A: Playpanel works best with Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (classic mode) operating systems.
I doubt Adobe has much incentive to fix this bug.
Other than that - I don't see an option to install Flash without PlayPanel.