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Sure, that's a nice sentiment, and I threw my money at people in a similar manner a few times, but usually it's for "early access" or crowdfunding campaigns. Preorders seem like a weird medium for that, and it's even weirder when people do it for AAA games (not the case here, but I've seen many such cases).
And for AAA games, I'd generally agree. Unless the pre-order comes with something nice that I'd enjoy (and I'd consider 'free' cosmetic as valid as anything else), I'd usually not. If the pre-order bonus comes with, say, a bundled season pass for the first X DLC, then I'd consider it, based on my expectation of the developer in question. Some studios, sure- I expect to play that DLC. In others, not.
I'll give an example of the one of the last times I did it, which was... two years ago now?
Anyway- Book of Hours, which is a same-setting spinoff/sequel of Cultist Simulator. Cultist Simulator is a very esoteric game- it's very hard to even describe the game without spoiling some of the (occult) magic of the experience. But it was weird, I liked it as a great experience in world building from a very 'I don't know what's going on and have to piece it together' sense, and I was willing to engage the sequel.
I pre-bought the sequel at full price (~$25) solely because doing so might get any future DLC for free. It wasn't a guarantee there would be DLC, just that if you pre-bought the game, you'd get the free upgrade and get any future DLC for free.
Turns out, that did happen. There's a $15 dollar expansion. I also haven't played it (yet- maybe later this year). I also don't regret it, because I greatly enjoyed the quirky little game of being a librarian who opens rooms in a ruined occult library and [insert gibberish of explaining how the sun died and may yet be reborn because the new king of england is-].
On the flip side- once upon a time, I was big Bioware fan. I bought the third games of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series because they were big culminating events. I didn't even mind that they were controversial- I just wanted to know how they ended, and learn it from myself, without the vibes from other people. No regrets. But of the recent Dragon Age 4 Veilguard, I had no hopes and was not disappointed that my non-preorder saved me several dozen gameplay hours. By the sounds of it, Bioware is an all-but-dead studio, and I'll just give it a little toast and move on while waiting for another Indie strategy game later.
(Menace, by the creators of Battle Brothers. An almost-indie studio that has put some solid strategy games that are rough and unreasonably fair. I probably will pre-buy, because a sci-fi positioning strategy game is my jam and I want to encourage.)
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