we've been running NPM11.0.1 + NCM 7.3.2 additional polling engines and FoE -- support generated keys valid until maintenance expires.
Up til that point we could get away without running the APE, but at that version the databases merged and we had to get the keys.
I believe for that they have to escalate the case up to a VP (it took a couple of days since we ran into an issue where only every other-key would work)
I would contact the technical support folks and ask them to generate keys for you.