There's some truth in it, also and especially looking to the grey markets: when I came in to Star Citizen beginning of this year, I was both, excited and annoyed: excited about Star Citizen - and annoyed about all the limited ships. Thus I began to spend money via reddit and so on. Until one day I began to realize again two things: first that even the ships which are only available at some times for sure ARE available several times a year and second that I do NOT support CIG when I'm throwing my money onto the grey markets.
As a result from that time on I only spent money directly to CIG *and* tried to convince new members to wait for special sales instead of burning money on reddit or whereever.
So, my thoughts are going in a quite similar direction of those of Montoya; but what do you think: could the special sales - which now seem to happen more often than in the past and which are now coming with discounted cash options - could these special sales also be a strategy to make people become more aware that it is a better way to buy their ships/pledges directly on the official RSI platform...?