I love them, it helps add to the game. Although I didn't pre-order Sam and Max, because frankly I'm not paying 30 bucks for a bunny hat.

For a bunny hat? You may have missed the point of the Sam & Max season... 
 
That said I'm a sucker for unlocking stupid vanity items, I gladly went back to shops in Mass Effect 2 just so I could get new armour pieces and I'll do it again in Mass Effect 3.   Just got my first hat in TF2, the soldier's saucepan.  Really wanted one of the Pyro hats, they're by far the best.

I wouldn't pay for one just to have it. Like Bill's hat, I really like it and I think it's an awesome hat, but I didn't pre-order L4D2 just to have it, cause I knew that I wasn't gonna play L4D2 that much.

I love vanity items, but I wouldn't want to pay for them, and they wouldn't provide much tilt when deciding whether or not to preorder.

I would have gotten the gold medal if I had gotten the game on PC instead of the friggin' 360.
 
STUPID STUPID STUPID

I had already played and enjoyed the existing Sam & Max games, so the bunny hat was merely the kick I needed to pre-order the third season. I am all for flavor customization in games like TF2 so long as any user-generated component of it has some required proving grounds before getting in the game (something Valve has done fine so far). 
 
And as any TF2 player will assure you, Valve spends plenty of time changing the actual game even while making hats.

I think that vanity items are a cool thing that gives a game personality, but I wouldn't pay for these items unless it came with a pre-order or expansion of some sort.

I think TF2 was a good game when it was released. Now it's broken. The cancer began on April 29, 2008, according to your link.

I'm all for them as they add to the versatility.

They should have made a medal for those who PREORDERED the game and participated in the beta. :\ 
 
Also, I was just thinking earlier today about how fucking much the game has changed since its launch. Not even including the new weapons and items: 

• Spies (with the default watch) can pick up metal and ammo to increase their stealth gauge
• Dispensers and teleporters can be be leveled up (I can't even remember, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't level up dispensers back in the day...?)
• The scoreboard shows icons for the different classes
• Arena mode
• Payload mode
• Tags in server browser (how did we ever live without this?!)
• Tons of other changes and fixes I can't think of off the top of my head

They wimped out my flamethrower so I don't give a fart.

They only gimped the flamethrower for the W+M1 Pyros. The flamethrower is actually much more useful now.
 
Anyway, I think vanity items are cool even though I don't have any, and I don't understand people who have something against them.