Sure, people make mistakes, but I'm puzzled how many here defend the corporation in a situation like this. Especially, when other game developers/publishers are blamed for less, like bugs at launch which don't actually prevent anyone from playing the game.
Again, you can't have been at many online launches. People who understand how these things work will always use rational ahead of emotional responses. We're not "defending the big corporations" as much as we understand online releases are prone to many, many issues.
Some can be planned for, some can't. All it takes is a little error for shit to cascade into a huge issue. There's no 100% way to protect against it, and this is pretty much proven by your own admission than Bungie have had almost perfect launches thus far.
Shit. Happens. Online.
This isn't a fiasco, this isn't some unprecedented failure, this is the reality of working on a huge scale online product.