The $15 gift card deal is good at in the following areas, per the fine print at the bottom:
Iowa stores (excluding Sioux City); Idaho stores (excluding Biose); Rapid Cidy, SD; and Huntington, WV
Also in the geographic areas: Omaha, NE; Spokane, WA; Poduch, KY; Dayton and Columbus, OH
This is actually a better promotion for the Average Joe than doorbusters. Joe can get a "deal" (deal to him... but not if he went to pricewatch) on the item he really wants (digicam, high end laptop). He doesn't think they'll be cheaper any time until Christmas.. so he buys now. THEN, he has Best Buy gift cards - so he has to come back before Christmas and purchase other gifts here, even if they are cheaper elsewhere. It's a win-lose scenario.
Also, keep in mind that Best Buy has announced that they would like to BAN customers who buy only sale items without added RAM, protection plans, and who cause them to lose money from their store. If you are reading this post, you are one of those customers. Best Buy would like to ban you from their store. If you boycott them on Black Friday, they've won.
Win-Lose scenarios are best for greedy retailers on Black Friday who don't want to give the die-hards their (expensive) candy.
(my $0.02)
I'm not a big fan of Best Buy either but do they still PM? Seems like you could PM AND get gift cards and come out pretty good.