I ordered the CE, and am now coming to terms with the very real prospect that I won't be getting it delivered today. But I REALLY want to play from midnight, so am considering purchasing the Steam version and pre-loading. I know Steam has issues with installing to different drives though:

I have a SSD and a HDD, and install most of my games to the HDD. Steam can only install games to the drive it's installed on itself, in this case the HDD. I play all my TES games on the SSD though to benefit from silky smooth stream loading of the gameworld. If I buy Skyrim over Steam then I will have to install it on the HDD, play that way until the CE arrives by post tomorrow, then uninstall from Steam, re-install from disc to the SSD, and HOPE that Steam will be okay with that. Save games will be easy enough to transfer.

Does anyone know if that will be possible? If I already have Skyrim bought over Steam, and uninstalled in the Steam game list in the HDD, then will it recognize a fresh install on the SSD? Or will it try to make me download the game again before playing it, requiring it to be installed on the HDD? I'm worried that owning an uninstalled Steam version and having to run my retail copy through Steam as well will cause issues, especially when running from a drive that Steam isn't installed to.

Phew, I hope that made sense to someone =S

Once a game has been activated to your account it is tied to that account and cannot be transferred - you can only register one copy of the game to your account so if you buy a copy of Skyrim from steam you would have to create another account to use your CE version (it is perfectly ok to have multiple accounts with Steam if that's what you want to do.)

I know that there are ways to link with steam so that you can install games to different HD's, but I don't know much about that, so someone else will need to answer

You're kidding me? Since the only way to install games from Steam onto my SSD is to uninstall Steam from the HDD and re-install it on my SSD (uninstalling ALL of my games in the process) that's really not an option. And buying the game over Steam means I can't use the CE version? Argggh...

If that's true, I have to choose between waiting until tomorrow to play the game, or playing from midnight but being restricted to a HDD... man that's tough.