Oh dear God do I get sick of hearing complaints about the "illusion of scarcity" every time somebody can't get something obviously in demand.
Do you have any idea how many moving parts there are to something like this?
The only message I get from your post is that you can't separate your opinion from reality (like so many others).
Twitter is living proof that if your service is compelling enough people will put up with a LOT of unreliability (and in the context of a network like Twitter, FB, or G+, compelling means 'are there many people I personally want to interact with it on the service'). Will they also put up with a brick wall keeping them and/or their friends and family out (regardless of why it exists)? Will they tolerate the extremely confusing UX (even from a techie's perspective) that goes along with trying to scale that wall? I guess with Google+ we will find out one way or the other.
My main beef with Google+ isn't even that it is limited right now (though that does suck for a 'social network') but rather that the invite system doesn't make any kind of rational sense and the funky way it works isn't properly communicated to users at all.
From a public relations POV though it's very poorly handled. A better, fairer way would be to give each new member 1 or 2 invites, not hundreds or thousands, and ensure those invites work. I've sent invites out to friends and family a week ago and none are working, so they shrug and go back to Facebook - G+ has become last week's wonder.
Most annoying is the continual "invites open now!" posts popping up here and there - and you know that they won't work for you.
Technical issues or not Google could have and should have had a fair and transparent invite system in place.