For the UK we can expect limited numbers, Paying between 150 to 200 % what the us or japan pays. We will also get a cut down version of hardware that will not not be able to do progresive scan and have lovely balck borders on 50% of the games. Nintendo Europe suck and will shaft us yet again

That's not entirely true anymore.

With the gamecube they changed a bunch of age old practices:
They didn't do the black border thing.
They didn't run slower.
They did support progressive scan cubes with component cables.
They charged 130 pounds sterling at launch (my pound key is broken), which was closer to the $200 dollar equivalent they were charging in the US than Microsoft or Sony. Both those companies continue to rip us off on hardware (check the PSP: $250 vs 180 pounds).
Sure they still have MAJOR problems - mostly with release dates (and lack of releases), but in hardware terms, they've actually learnt the lesson enough that they're better than the competition.

not every game in the cube was without borders.
but every pal game was without progresive scan. you could play ntsc games using freeloader but uk games had pro scan removed

...for everyone else, Nintendo told us to shove our S-Video goodness - composite video is the new black! Fscktardedness at its finest.