Nah.... they have to anticipate the demand and meet it, and extra copies in stock and large displays of good sellers is what they want, especially around christmas, when those rushed customers without a precise idea of what to offer to Roger will often fall back on books that must be popular since there's these big displays and tons of copies in store... Sure, TGS was book 12 of 14, but a lot of aunts Gertrud will remember their Roger has read those WOT books. People who normally buy paperbacks only will also often ask for the HB of a release like that for christmas etc.

Tor (and others) aren't investing on correction of the first edition anyway (their writers are usually on promo tour, to start with, and it takes months to get enough feedback to establish what the revisions should be). They just keep printing it as is (unless it's something really book breaking and copies have to be recalled) It's only with the paperback edition that some revisions might show up, and they won't be publicized at all. Otherwise what would they do with the numerous "unrevised" unsold copies still in store? The last thing they'd want is customers starting to inquire of bookstores is if the book is the revised printing or not... the bigger chains might even force Tor to take back the first edition if a second revised one was available.

They'll discretely correct the hardback at the same time as the paperback is released, if they keep that format in print (not sure Tor does it. I shopped for HC of WOT years after release, and while one (a replacement copy of TPOD bought around the time of COT) was a second edition, the HC copies of TSR, TDR etc. were all first editions.

The (large) bookstore I got it from stocks about 3 days worth of copies and on the first day they only had a few tens extra copies of TGS left to sell before noon. The waves of students and office people had not come to pick the book at lunch break yet, and they were afraid of having under stocked for days 2-3. SF/Fantasy is really not their speciality and they had misjudged the "fans have been waiting 5 years for this one" phenomenon that made TGS sell faster than previous WOT books. Other chains had anticipated it.

The first week for a release with a big fan base or books from bestselling writers, the bookstores can't afford to run out. WOT is exactly the sort of book that people who want it now will go to the competitor or fall back on ordering online if their usual store has run out of copies when they wanted it. If they want to survive in the days of Amazon and co, street stores can't afford too much mistakes like this. So much that that chain I go to have this policy that if they run out of copies of any new release the first month, they give you a 30% rebate voucher for this or another book in the hope that you will wait and return to buy it from them, and won't go elsewhere first for your next new release purchase.