Munk - that's the state of the art for PC games today. It costs too much money (and time, and time is money) to iron out all the problems of most applications (and almost all games) before they're released these days. It's assumed that end users will have a decent internet connection and enough knowledge to find the publisher's website so that software that's released in a semi-intentionally buggy format can be patched a week or two after release. Why this assumption is invalid is beyond the scope of this post but needless to say, I don't agree with it.
Games are usually a safer bet. They're normally patched to near-perfection before the sequel is released. (Unlike Windows 98.) To each his, or her, own. Games are occasionally released without being functional. They normally don't do well.
Online updates are the wave of the future. It saves money for the publisher and developer to release programs that are, according to the standards of a decade ago, incomplete, in the expectation that future problems will be ironed out and fixed and available via downloads.
I'm not protecting Microsoft's (or the others') practices. When I purchase a program I expect and demand full function. Unfortunately, this often isn't the case. In the occasional case where a program performs to its expectations (see Half Life 2), the wait is often unacceptable. I don't like it - but I'm not in charge, and this is where things are headed.
The solution? When a program (or major update) is released, give it some time to mature. I still haven't downloaded Windows Service Pack #2 for the simple reason that I've heard so many bad things about it, both on the internet and personally. When the gripes die down I'll download it. When a game is released I give it at least a week for the same reason: it probably didn't leave the publisher in the state that I'd like it to be in.
It didn't transfer the mail settings right. blah.