Well, maybe subs would be faster, cheaper and better (arguably) but in this special case that would mean that at least ten percent of all of the lines wouldn't be real subtitles as they would have to say something completely different than the original German to get the jokes across. And those are a lot. Many of them linguistic jokes, too. Timing of puns comes to mind as well. So I can understand why a developer (or probably the publisher even more so) would prefer the whole shebang with emotional expression in the language of the targeted audience, with humor that's genuine to that language and with an opportunity to straighten out "mistakes" that have been made in the original.
By the way, I believe that the ones who will be drawn to an original version wit subs are still in the minority (considering the mainstream. Or how many US citizens go rent a foreign movie and watch it in the original language? Having to read all the time can distract from the plot, the characters and so on, too). But that's just a guess.
As for the "announced" date of Q4 2009: This has to be a misprint. As far as I know they struck the deal in early August. It would not even have been possible to translate the thing (roughly a bit over 28,000 lines), proofread it, let alone test it properly even if they had gone for subs only. So Q4 2010 was more likely from the beginning.
Furthermore I have the suspicion that US publishers want to buy a sure thing, so naturally they have to wait for significant success of the game in the home territory before they take on the risk (which is, of course minimized using that policy).
Cheers from sunny and extraordinarily warm Scotland, Dan.
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