I hate these "new" rental exclusives with no special features or anything. I used to wait for the new releases to hit prev. used and then i would do the deal, but now they don't release them unrated or special features.

Am I the only who hates this?

This practice is hardly new; studios have been doing it for nearly two years now.

I don't mind the rental exclusive on some titles, as those titles are sometimes only omitting a short featurette, and many unrated cuts are superfluous.

Bonus features are an added incentive, so I don't mind too much that they are offered to consumers paying a premium through retail.

Agreed. When I first started getting dvds, bonus features were HUGE for me. Now, I very rarely pay any attention to them so if they're not on a rented disc, it's no big deal.

I used to rent Unrated versions to see if it was better than the regular rated ones.

I just don't like the giant "Rental" plastered on the artwork (on some)

I do like films like Buried (2010) getting a DVD release through rental stores, even though there are only BD/DVD Combos elsewhere.

I don't like it, and it has certainly stopped my purchase of 'sell-through' titles, but yeah, it's not that recent a development.

On the other hand, it's stopped me from buying movies I wouldn't have rented in the first place, simply because I was lured by a commentary track and a few featurettes. In the end, I guess it's making me focus on quality rather than quantity.

Yeah I bought 'The Box' used for a couple of bucks and it was one of those. Didn't really mind all that much as the film wasn't a great one but interesting enough for what I paid for it. I'm more careful now when I buy used to ask the seller if it is indeed one of those DVD's as I do like special features on my DVD's if they come on the original 'non-rental' release!

Unless it's a something I liked very much, I rarely ever bother going through the special features on my DVDs. So buying a "rental exclusive" disc 2 weeks after the movie was released for $5 or under doesn't bother me. In some instances, the regular version goes into a $3-5 bin shortly after the rental version goes on sale--in which case I just buy the regular version.