I don't think that necessarily lines up with the reports that they have a $500 million marketing budget for the phone -- a number I still have trouble believing by the way. I know there are different strategies for marketing and creating awareness, but I agree with posters that are underwhelmed with the efforts to date. I would think they would be doing more to create awareness at this point.
That said, their approach is consistent with efforts to have a slow launch and reinforces my belief that they do not want to crush their supply chain out of the gate. If they still feel like they want to test MotoMaker prior to huge number of orders coming in, then allow the tech bloggers and the community to drive awareness initially is smart. They would be relying on simple market segmentation. Then once the system is stressed tested, they will be able to validate/update their forecast and then start to drive more awareness. This is a classic strategy used by marketing teams, and fits with the types of issues that would typically be expected with a launch of this type of product.
I have said this in other threads as well. This is very consistent also with the way Google stress tests their major software roll outs, and could reflect some cross pollination.