Same boat here. I had no problems making a PSN account because I like the idea of crossplay, but if they were planning to add this requirement back in later they needed to be much more clear about it. Like "gigantic popup every time you load the game if you don't have a PSN account" clear, especially with PSN not being available in certain countries.
There's also the larger question of why this is required. Clearly the game works just fine without it. Whatever the reason is, it's not for the benefit of the players.