Could also be an A/B test of some new infrastructure design to see if it's ready to deploy in November. I have no idea if they still hold everything together with Perl (via this templating system: http://www.masonhq.com/) but it wouldn't surprise me, and it also wouldn't surprise me that there'd be occasional pushes to replace it with something "modern" (or at least friendlier to the revolving door of new grads).
This would make a lot of sense, they essentially get a "game day" with actual sales, make a lot of money and a few months to prepare for the next wave of seasonal mob-shopping.
