Just a quick observation and a question:
The retail/release version of the game appears to run more smoothly on my computer than the demo did. Granted, I learned to turn the shadows off to improve matters.
The comment made, was the game tweaked, somehow, to improve its behavior, performance wise. Since getting it installed, I've fire up several scenarios and it's running smooth as silk with everything maxed-out, sans shadows.
Now, I have to go break some things and hurt some 3-D models!