Well, obviously finding a really nice dress is a greater challenge! Not to mention arranging furniture so it's just right...

I'm pretty shocked Soulstorm did so well.  Anyone who visted the forums after release would have quickly realized the expansion was of very inferior qualitity and buggy as hell compared to the last one.  And it was $10 more (initially) than the last one.  Don't get me wrong, I love Dark Crusade (with mods), but it's disappointing Relic didn't get punished more for getting lazy and contracting out all the work for their cash cow franchise.

I feel bad for the people who got suckered into the new MMOs though.  You'd think people would know better than to buy an MMO in its first year by now.  It takes at least a year to work out the bugs and poor design desicions in these games.  But people seem to be forgiving when it comes to MMO quality.  That, or it's denial about having to pay for playing a beta version.

I suppose some gamers are just poorly "educated" and unaware. Some want to support the particular MMO maker or franchise: they want to experience and influence the game early on - either to help make it greater or to have an upper hand on late comers - or they want to hand over their money to the developer's coffers early on because the MMO represents something special for them. Perhaps the value in MMO offerings is rather different from boxed (or downloadable non-subscription based) games so game reliability or balance are not deal-breakers.