And things are getting worse by the year! The registration lottery system they did was frustrating but I see no other way of handling it. But they definitely need to rethink the swag thing, or I/O will become irrelevant soon (if not already so).
I remember people complain every year during registration, but then during the conf it never surfaces.
In my group of friends alone, I know of at least 10 people (non-developers with no interest to start) that got tickets last year, went up to I/O as a SF vacation, stopped by Moscone to pick up the freebies, then sold them off to pay for the trip and then some. While I, as a developer with an Android app published, didn't manage to get tickets last year nor this year.