Heavenfire, there is no OFFICAL pre-order. If there was a sanctioned company pre-order, it would also be on BestBuy.com. The pre-order that exists that I know of is go pay for the gift card, write the name down in the book, and if there's one available on launch day and your number is up, you get first pick.
I can understand that, to you, the process sounds very disorganized and how they cannot give you answers to these sorts of questions makes them look unprofessional. I assure you, after working both iPad and iPad 2 launch, this is EXACTLY how Apple did it before. This is the first time I've seen stores offering the "pre-order" in gift card style, but I do recall gettting my Droid X in that manner. Apple does NOT give out a tally of how many tablets are being sent. For iPad 1, we were told we were getting 15...we got 6, and 4 of them were 64 GB and nobody bought them. For the iPad 2 launch, they wouldn't give us a number and we asked if it was 20 or more, they said probably, we got 8 and then 12 more the next day. Apple is the boss. They have total say in how many are sent. Employees are NOT permitted to be on the list. They could have a family member come in and sign, possibly, but it could result in termination. When limited quantities are involved, real customers get to go first - MAJOR company policy.
Regarding your tablet situation. Define "less than perfect" or "junk". I don't own one but I found the iPad 2 fairly impressive as far as tablets go when it came out. What do you want out of it? What do you use it for? Do you travel a lot? Are you planning on going for some kind of service like 3G/4G?
Regarding your credit. You can get the cash back but it's gonna be a rough go. We did this 1 time in my store ever, and the manager nearly lost his job over it. I will PM you some steps.
Good Luck!
