While I certainly don't care for PayPal's practices, I'm also not a fan of pre-orders. Specifically, I don't think anyone should ever be charged for something,

While I certainly don't care for PayPal's practices, I'm also not a fan of pre-orders. Specifically, I don't think anyone should ever be charged for something, even a partial payment, before it's delivered/shipped. In fact, I think there are regulations that payment not be captured until merchandise is shipped. If you're just authorizing the cost of the merchandise, and then waiting to capture after shipping, I think that's fine, but does PayPal allow you to do that?