First of all, I'm not talking to either game bashers or white knights, but instead to rational people that like more or less what they have and want more and/or better.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe after 3 months Frontier will announce the next paid DLC for Elite... If pre-order is available, would you do it or not? I will, and that's why:
Generally speaking, I rarely pre-order any game and, like CMDR Exigeous was saying in a stream, "pre-ordering software is stupid", I have to admit.
But in this particular case, I would make an exception and not because of my eternal love for the game, but for more tangible benefits.
At this point in time, I believe that although Frontier did their homework assessing the potential of a new paid DLC and creating a state of "favorable expectation" for the player base by choosing to make Beyond first, they still don't know for sure how (financially) successful the new DLC will be. And this will generate a potential problem, in terms of the actual content, directly proportional with the commitment of the resources.
TL,DR, Horizon was not 100% what they (and we) expected and they don't want to make the same mistake twice. So, by pre-ordering the new DLC in good quantities, we, the players, may be able to assure that the content for the future DLC won't be scaled down or rushed, or let in the hands of the (no offense) B team.
It will be a clear message, like "Go on, make it 100%, we'll buy it no matter what" or something beyond those lines. What do you think?