The primary reason I pre-ordered is the live streams of the game. When I want to buy a game I don't look at reviews, I look at let's plays to get an impression of the game. It's a bit of a flawed way because I'll mostly just get an impression of the start of the game. In this case I've seen more of the game than I normally do before buying. Second thing is that I had the money and after watching the streams I knew I'd buy it, so I've bought it and then that cost is over and even though I wouldn't be in a situation where I couldn't afford it when it comes out, I kind of like known costs to just be done.
I do find pre-ordering rather silly in the digital distribution age. But them I am quite silly so in this case it works. I'd never pre-order sight unseen though even with Steam refunds being a thing.
I do see that pre-ordering gives game companies a better chance of surviving lauching a broken game, even with Steam refunds it would still mean more sales than if there were no pre-orders. Plus if you've pre-ordered you're kind of invested, so perhaps you'd be more willing to give it a chance after launch to see if they patch the game to a functional state. Where if you haven't yet bought it, you'd look at the updates once in a while to see the state of the game, and perhaps ending up never buying the game. That's what happened with me and the last Batman game.
Pre-ordering is only really a good thing for the game companies, it does nothing really for the gamers. But I don't find it a horrible thing, so long as you do so knowing that sometimes there's a risk, however small it might be.
