@ Liam - depends on if their server can handle allowing that amount of downloads, at a decent speed. First Strike suffers from low population, but even over >6 mirrors we had a few capping out when the latest version was released.
@ Goz - Yes, I see that, but overall it's a bad strategy.
If they dumped their server with the title "Official" and had their beta testers sitting on it come release, they would have a big enough advance to make their server primary.
Freeworlds tied this once: One Server updated and working when the patch was released, the patch was released the same time as server software. This involved full (and at the time, laggy) server which drove some off from the very start because they couldn't get a gameOR the game wasn't performing to well. It's good in concept, but doesn't always work out in practice: we'll see.