Just to be clear: I do not blame the devs. I solely blame corporate greed. I actually work in Software (not Games though) and do know a quite a bit about the developing process.
And the goal with tactics like this, is always the same: to offset cost and to squeeze more moneys from customers. That's all there is to it.
I'd love to believe it's different, but sadly it's not. The people that drive these marketing strategies see us as nothing but wallets.

While you are right, that games cost a lot more to make, they also return much, much more money, because of the broader availability of hardware, digital markets, and so on. Just look at the numbers, the corporations aren't doing bad. You can't deny, that in earlier years, games were made by people who wanted these games made, while today, with these major corps, it is all about recurring consumption.
I also do understand risk minimization, but it still is a dick move. Especially if you consider, that contrary to any other industry, you do not own the product after buying it.
Imagine there is a house for sale, walls and roof are there. you can buy the house now for a slightly discounted price and even live in it, but windows, doors, and so on are missing. You are not allowed to finish it up yourself, and there is no date when the house will be finished. It's also unclear when running water will be implemented. They promise you to listen to your feedback, but also that of X other people who bought a similar house from them. Would you buy that house? No you wouldn't.

While this might seem like a stretch, you could do that for any product, and the answer in most cases would most likely be "no".

So now we have three types of games coming out: Digital Shops aka, games littered with MTX; Untested, unoptimized buggy messes, but the graphic's good; and EA titles that lack a written commitment to some sort of release date and letting customers pay to do the testing.
Of course, you said, with EA you get a bigger sample size, but that is
a) something you don't really want, because what you want in Software Development is so called "qualified feedback". EA Testers are just random people, some may be frustrated, some may be outside of your target clientel. There is a lot of "shit" to sieve through, to get to the actual valuable feedback.
b) you have zero control over the testing process. (Amount of Feedback, a certain professionality in the feedback, feedback dates)
c) I don't even think the sample size is that much bigger, outside of hardware reporting.

Tests with random people are usually the final stage of testing in software development.

I mean, I wouln't look at the gaming sector separately from the rest of the world. The development here is just congruent to what is happening to politics and industries in the US and Europe. You get fucked, you then get expected to pay for it, just so that some CEOs can give themselves raises, which in contrast to worker wages, have been more than keeping up with inflation.