I can sort of see Sony's side of this - I would imagine they have a number of select photographers who get to beta test pre-release cameras, and provide detailed feedback on how the cameras are working, what needs changing, how they can be improved, etc.
These will be people who use Sony every day, and get to know the cameras in detail.
Sony will (I assume) have listened to their feedback, and probably had the sort of discussions on what can or cannot be done, what are the priority items, etc.
So from Sony's viewpoint they have listened to customers.
What they've not done is trawled the mass of Sony user forums and looked at every wish-list going - and there are some pretty crazy suggestions made at times.
As for the 'hype' - I agree, Sony marketing have tried to counter Nikon's firmware releases by making out they have something equally impressive, and now look fairly stupid when what is released is a much more modest affair.