It does seem like B&N was clumsy in its rollout of its e-book store and Nook, introducing the former when the latter wasn't ready. OTOH, B&N's e-book store is designed to operate independently of the Nook if you prefer (they have a workable PC reader app already), so the Nook wasn't vital to using the store, as, say, the Kindle was at first.
If anything, I'd say that B&N is simply trying to get some pre-holiday interest going, even if they haven't been able to keep production on a preferred schedule. None of the dedicated device sellers has managed to produce enough devices to satisfy initial demand (which may be because they simply underestimated demand, and didn't want to be stuck with a warehouse full of dross), so I wouldn't unduly criticize B&N for that.
I do think they should have made more of an effort to have demo devices in ALL stores before the holidays, but again, the realities of production may have prevented that even if they'd initially wanted to do that.
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