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Most things I've seen in prefaces would make a lot more sense to me as postfaces. :P
I once got one of those books that are commonly read at school because of critics and scholars liking them from the library. The preface gave away the ending to explain its symbolic meaning, which made me very angry, and is one of the things that make me loathe the whole capital-L Literature establishment.
Introduction by someone other than the writer: Why should I care about their opinion? And even if I cared, it would make way more sense to read it after I had a chance to read the book and get my own first impression, rather than getting railroaded into the commenter's reading.
Info by the author explaining why and how they wrote the book: I don't know the book yet, so at the moment I don't care. I might be interested if I liked the book, that is, after reading it.
Page of acknowledgements: I suspect these may be more interesting to the people named than to most readers. Like any other "making of" info, the only reason I might be interested is if I read and liked the book, not before I read the book.
List of other books by the same author: Meh. If it's two or three that fit on the copyright page, OK. The complete bibliography of Terry Pratchett, more or less twice because it includes the adaptations into plays? WHY do you put that much stuff between me and the story I'm here to read?
Excerpt from the book itself: Now, that's just annoying. Particularly in ebooks, which with some publishers have very little front matter... It's happened several times to me that I thought the excerpt was the start of the book proper, only then it was followed by license notes and other not-story pages.
Endorsements: Tacky and annoying. I don't want to see what other people (purportedly) say about the story, I want to see the story itself.
I don't mind "thank you"s and dedications that are just a line or three.
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