Have you dropped your tray with food while leaving the counter at a restaurant? Or dropped your ice cream cone just when you got it? They will usually replace it with a new one, no extra charge, even if the mistake was yours. It costs next to nothing for them, and they still have a pleased customer.
So even though I get the unfairness of this situation, it is their CDs and they can do whatever they want with them, give them away. If we could wait 6-12 moths the price of all formats would drop 50-75% and then we can buy it cheaply and not worrying that we would have paid for the other free CDs. Because, anyway I see it, paying so much money for various formats, shows and badges posters t-shirts, is what drives prices up.