Just my opinion but selling mounts, no matter what mmo, just kills my "give a crap" about mounts. The game will eventually become saturated with stupid shop bought mounts and that just kills the excitement of even bothering with them.

Again, just my opinion but there is no pride in shop bought mounts....

Unfortunately it appears that the suits in upper management are pulling al the strings...you know, the guys who think they know things about games and gamers but don't have a clue.

Its the same as offering it as a collector's edition bonus in my opinion.

To me it's not. The collectors edition is nothing more than a quicker way to get around faster.

Earning a mount from a drop is something to be more proud of ingame.....collectors edition mount is just a convenience thing.

So if you have the CE horse you're less than?

To people that do not have the collector's edition, it is also a convenience thing. I mean, I get your against cash shops, and some of the cheesy skins that come out because of them trying to sell lots of the same thing in different colors. But lets call a spade a spade.

Well worth is subject, have fun walking.

I've never had 'pride' in CE granted or in game vendor bought mounts either...

As you say, just a faster way to get around. Not a status symbol. Not sure why you're trying to make the store bought one out to be more than it is.

I don't get your argument about pride.

I'm playing games for fun and I'm working for money.

If I want pride, I'll go back to school and become intelligent.

I found myself barely having any use for the damn horse. It was about as fast as running. For the inventory bags at higher levels I guess its nice but that require upgrades.

If the mount is pretty or, as I feel it, iconic in some way (I'd totally like to ride a tiger-like animal instead of a horse-like animal on my Bosmer) then I will buy it.
That being said, mounts earned in-game are also cool simply because of the ability to display an achievement, like the OP is saying.

Find me a pretty mount that you have to earn with gameplay and you have endgame content for me. I will spend all of my time gunning for it.
...and if the developers are reading this, please PLEASE don't just make it an impossibly low RNG based mechanic. Make it a difficult acquirement because of the challenge itself. Complete a dungeon portion in X minutes before you lose access to a special encounter boss. Stuff like that.