I think you may be right as well. I pre-ordered as soon as possible on announcement day. A couple of days after, I got an email saying the date had changed to 19th. I called yesterday to ask why the date had changed and the CSR said, "did anyone tell you earlier that you could speed the process up by skipping the engraving?"
I said 'no' and the conversation stopped there. I didn't push it further because she had just refunded my smart cover without asking!
She said that she was very confident that it would be in my hands on Monday.
I personally like the engraving so I'm not too upset.