If Apple had said "we designed it this way, but you have to have a case". I would ask so why put on the unscractchable toughened (and expensive) glass if you need to put it in a case?

They got this wrong and were too far into pre-production etc to avoid this - the bumpers are their first attempt to ride the wave of bad publicity.

Lots of people think Apple's metronomic release schedules are a good thing - this just shows why maybe they are not. We will see if ipads general uselessness and this clusterf... might take some of the gleam off the apple aura.