To compare the launch of UT3 to any previous UT is to ignore the hugely different circumstances that dominate right now.
I posted a thread on their forums to the effect that they were using UT3 more as a tech demo than as a game they felt passionately about as an end product. The thread was deleted by the gestapo, of course, since, according to their forum rules, we the consumers have no place discussing or speculating about their business practices. About two months later, a transcript of some event Mark Rein was at showed him saying exactly what I was saying. So: Epic does "Games" that are designed as demonstrations of what their latest engine can do, so as to attract licensees. Once the tech demo is out, companies don't see a profit in supporting the end-user of that demo. Everything Epic has done with Ut3, from the haphazard beta-demo, to the half-baked UI, shows that their focus has shifted away from us, the players.
UT was their golden release, the product that put them firmly in the throne occupied by Id for so long. to develop for that game was easy, since they were having as much fun with it as we were. 2k4 was a positive experience because it redeemed the stumble of 2k3. But UT3 has clearly been a different sort of product launch for them.
A two-year hype-cycle hurt them, building community anticipation far in excess of what the game was going to deliver. While Epic admits they screwed this up, patting themselves on the back for years about things that were not going to end up in the game, there doesn't seem to be much indication they realize how damaging UT3 has been to their fanbase. Most of what was promised in the game was quietly dropped, which isn't a good policy when the features were so loudly proclaimed, and every aspect of the game unrelated to actual in-game time was a terrible rush-job. The lack of things that were standard in every Unreal game for the last ten years made people wonder if the hundreds of man-hours worth of demo footage and tech levels couldn't have been used in actual game development.
When it finally arrived, the demo clearly caused a disappointing reaction from the community, far lower than what they anticipated, based on their pre-release press statements. Judging by their public comments post-release, and the hard-core message control they've instituted onto their forums, they aren't happy with the full game either. Now, saddled with a multi-platform launch staggered across almost a full year, Epic will have little time to devote to any one platform's flaws, much less considering new content.
Lastly, their "postmortem" breakdown of UT3 read more like an autopsy. They knew the community had branded UT3 damaged goods, and it sounded to me as if Epic had washed its hands of the title. Disappointment on the scale this game surely caused for Epic and their fans won't make them want to do more with it. We'll get a patch or two more, and then Epic hopes we'll begin salivating over the Gears 2 hype-cycle, and forget UT3.
Maybe I'm wrong, but Epic isn't a game development company anymore. They make an engine and tech demos, and unless you've got a license, they aren't listening to you.