Hey Jim,
Welcome to the club of the bittersweet, snarky and disillusioned.
It took me about $500 worth of crap games before I gave up on preordering.
I never liked DLC and preorder exclusives, as I believe they're creating an artificial consumerist elite. On the other hand, I do like special editions and figurines of stuff I really, really like. I think it's good to have choices and be allowed to throw money at things that might make one happy.
I don't think it's good to live on promises and well communicated hot air lies.
To be honest, just judging from the stance of my not always very humble self and, say, a dozen of the folks that share my gaming pastime, the DLC and preordering cultist schemes cost the industry an easy average $50,000 in the last three years from the very diversified bunch of us alone, and none of us have taken to piracy. We've just found other things to throw money at. Things that don't lie to us, things that make us happy. Like guns, dogs, cattle, motorbikes, cars and ass-old consoles. Bigger cars to haul those 160lbs CRT screens around that allow us to enjoy the old computers and consoles without having to resort to picture processing and emulation.
Right now, I pretty much despise Randy Pitchford. I think I know how the game is played, but going for smoke and mirrors and hiring bottom-feeding studios to create a "Gearbox" game is pretty low - if I misunderstood it and that statement is not valid, please let me rephrase it thusly: hiring some studio to create a "Gearbox" game is risky and stupid, methinks. Selling the resulting crap is quite offensive, no matter what goodies, figurines or DLC codes you pack in. It's all for nothing, as the actual game really, really is terribly bad.