It's smart business but it showed they were willing to sell incomplete products. Their main focus was the TL MMO but their single player tech demo (TL) sold so well that they had to release a sequel. TL and TL2 weren't originally supposed to be released.
There's pretty solid anecdotal evidence that Blizzard North got some help polishing and improving their game from the rest of the company. It's convenient that you ignore Flagship Studios and the mess that was Hellgate London.
We know where they are from but that doesn't mean we should ignore the flaws in the games they've made since the heads of Blizzard rejected their work for D3. The Schaefer brothers headed blizzard north and were the leads on both diablo games, before leaving Blizzard to form Runic with the guy who created Fate You do realise the guys that made torchlight are the same guys that made diablo 1 & 2 right?
