And you can even return it, if it's released and you haven't installed it... Or if it's on Steam, and you played it less than 2 hours.
There really isn't a lot of reason to strenuously avoid pre-ordering if you're pretty sure you'll buy it at release.
And even better, a lot of games have pre-installs that can save you time at release. You could be playing the game instead of being mad that it isn't downloaded yet.