I remember at the Burning Crusade launch we were all hanging around the portal hoping for some awesome event to happen at midnight, which of course it didn't. All that happened is that the people who had the game a day early entered the portal and left the rest of us standing there like eedjits. Well, the Alliance entered the portal anyway since we weren't allowing the Horde past us. Must have annoyed those Horde players who bought the game early for that very reason. Childish I know but that's just the way it went down.
I'm really hoping that they iron out the digital distribution with SC2 and have it fixed for Cataclysm. I hate buying retail games now... been completely spoiled by Steam.