Wily-weasel;
When first mentioned the patch was intended to bring every other release up to the NA release version. I don't know if they have added anything since then, or how quickly they are going to followup with another patch.
There are a couple topics with tips for people who have had trouble with higher resolutions.
Rhiggins;
There are various publishers and distributors involved with the release of the different localizations and patches, and Microsoft has its own procedures for the Xbox version (which carries over to the PC version, as well, if there is a planned simultaneous release).
While it would be nice if the people who bought the game first got the patch first, there is no way to plan in advance how many bugs are going to show up or how long they will take to fix. Once a release date is set and distributors start making orders, etc, there is no practical way to delay a particular release until a previous version gets a certain patch, especially when the patch is based on the gold version of the next release.
I will not even be able to get the game (Xbox version) until tomorrow. Should I be mad that everyone else got to play it first (barring critical bugs) and Canada was last? I've been waiting for half a year since the original summer release estimate was pushed back and then every other localization came out, and most people were able to play, even if the game wasn't perfect. I don't feel too bad about getting an updated version a couple days before you will get a patch (I'd be fine if the patch came out first, though).
Your car analogy isn't quite the same situation. Let's say a new car is released in a limited market. A flaw is found, and corrected in the production line before it gets ramped up to provide cars across the whole country. Would you say that no new cars could be sold until every one of the original production run got retrofitted with a fix?