It isn't a good situation for the company, eventually releases of iPhones will not generate the immediate rushes we have seen in the past. You don't want the community judging a devices success by the length of the lines seen at the malls. I can see Apple doing much in the future to moderate these rushes to the malls.
One option they have is the early release to the online store. Pre orders are part of this but they could go father and make the first couple of weeks online only. Not only does this truncate the lines at the malls it makes distribution far easier for Apple as they don't have to balance inventory across all of their stores.
Yes. And note that Apple has already done that with iPads. Last year when the Air 2 was released they didn't even say when it would be available in store. I just ordered it online.