Yeah that's true. You can either do that and get in and out fast and easy or not preorder and just show up and hope they don't run out. I don't see why people just don't preorder. There were tons of first come first serve last year.
I stopped by my local AT&T store this morning to ask them about this and they said this year pre-orders will not ship to or be reserved at the store. This may be different store to store though.