"Never been done" and records are what draw people to parks. As much as I would have liked for this to be a traditional steel launched coaster like Blue Fire or Helix, thank God parks continue to try new things and push the envelope. It's mutually beneficial, since it caters to the parks' marketing strategies, which leads to profit, and it allows park goers to have new experiences. Without parks and ride manufacturers striving for 'never been done,' we wouldn't have launches, dive coasters, inversions, drop tracks, spinning, etc. Riding wooden cyclone clones throughout the world would get pretty boring.
I like your point. If it was up to me would I have picked this over a Helix or lost gravity version? Uhh, no. But maybe we were just getting our hopes up a little too much. Taken for what it is this certainly does push the innovation envelope. I would argue that this qualifies as a 4D coaster more than the so-called "4D" free fly coasters. Will it be a home run like Outlaw run was? Maybe not. But they could have bought something a whole lot less intriguing.