So it's been a while and I still don't understand "early sales"

Every time a skin comes out now that I REALLY enjoy I still buy it because whatever. But when it's a cool skin, but not really for a main of mine I pass it over entirely. Before I would buy pretty much everything during the release sale as long as it was a skin I actually thought was decent, but with these "early sales" (that are actually a year later than the previous release sale) I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I'm missing what the whole point of the sales model is, or maybe I'm right and it is just to cash in even harder up front while trading off a little bit of profit later. Just seems kinda slimy and it can't actually be helping can it?

tldr; bring back the release sales please, I want to want to spend my money on superfluous skins but you're making that hard for me.