@Eric -- you rail about rebates but say that Verizon Wireless is good. But why should they even need to have you submit a rebate? Why can't they just apply the rebate to your account? It's not like you don't have an ongoing business relationship with them.

Stores do not give customers the rebates up front because they would have no way of limiting customers to a single copy, as they can do with rebates. If customers could just walk out of the store with $1500 of free software with no rebates, people who resell on ebay (and Craigslist and Amazon) would clear out the stores when the sale started on Sunday.