I have to say that Damien seems to have pulled a marketing win here....after ~5 months of no games, in a sellers market, on the cusp of Stern announcing their next title, he put a moneyfunnel on the collectors out there by taking pre-order deposits.
But the true genius was that he gave us two ways to engage. the 1 game deposit plan, or the multi-year, 5 game deposit plan!
Way to go Damien, super savvy.
Also the 2.0 version with the added LCD on the apron (not a pinbar! not a pinbar!) is a supercool idea.