Yeah, there's always the nagging doubt of "did they really, genuinely, only add this stuff later to improve the game or did they just hold it back from the original game so they could sell it seperately later on?"

Even a company like Valve isn't entirely without blame in this. Not that they're screwing us over (their DLC and/or updates are free), but stuff like the two extra versus maps coming in the Survival Pack soon is kinda dodgy. I mean, seriously, we're getting happy over something that (basically) should have been included in the original game to begin with.

The sad thing that Valve and their free policy are more of an exception than a rule. So yeah, I agree with your general assessment.