I'm gonna agree with the OP that this seems like derp on SE part.

Particularly because the rest of the Pre-Order bonuses become available on March 1st (or 3rd, can't remember date... sometime early March I think).


SURE, some players in game will be using the items to catch up alt jobs before ShB... In my case (and others but I don't have hard numbers), I already have all jobs at 70. I can use the minion right away, but I get no benefit from the earring until ShB actually comes out and I need to catch up GUN and ???(2nd job).

The main draw of the earrings will be to catch up newer players. And if SE's end goal is to get a higher player base installed for the launch of ShB... to me it would make sense to give these pre-orders access to HW and SB early as well (perhaps March with the rest of the pre-order bonuses).