I can't disagree that people are silly to complain about buying something they wanted at a price they were willing to pay. That's the way it works.

The interesting question is why Apple cut the price. I don't think it was part of their initial plan. If they had foreseen the response and bad PR, I'm sure they would have tried to handle it differently.

And, if Apple was "making more of a killing than anyone could have possibly imagined," they would have just kept on making it. That's also the way it works.

It almost certainly wasn't selling like they'd hoped. Maybe they wanted to clear the market for the holiday season and their line of new products. Maybe there's something in their agreement with AT&T that requires certain sales figures to be met (each one is a new subscriber for AT&T), and the failure to meet the targets results in direct or indirect financial penalties of some sort. Who knows?

Anyway, no one who bought a phone has any reason to complain (about the price) and no one should think that such a drastic price cut so soon after the launch is the result of a successful plan.