Charlene Li makes an interesting parallel to the launch of newsfeed, which I remember well, in her post about Beacon. She notes (as I did below) that the element of control is key to success of a technology like this.*
One of my colleagues, GO, made an excellent point a few months back about the Scion- its advertising and its brand are designed to polarize. They want you to either love it or hate it. Pros: Boxy. Cons: Boxy. Brands that no one cares about can never be strong.
So think about this:
What if this launch strategy is intentional? Piss off (nearly) everyone, get even more free press and attention and people getting scared about the feature. Make the smallest amount of changes consistent with minimizing negative responses, thereby maximizing value provided to advertisers (read: revenue). How's that for "agile development"?
*That is, until we have smart agents who can make correct assumptions about our preferences in these kinds of situations...but that's another story.