Hi - Another Australian player here 
Found a place in Australia that was selling the retail pre-order today and got quite excited! Was in the process of ordering two copies when it told me that it was no longer available... drat! 
I e-mailed the sites customer service and got a nice prompt reply...
Hi,
At this stage the fate of Everquest 2: The Shadow Odyssey in Australia has become unstable at best. I was advised by the distributors (Red Ant) that they won't be getting the title in and it has since been removed from the release lists by a sub-distributor. We have removed the game from the site for the time being until we have exhausted all possible supply lines.
Let us know if you have any further questions.
James Nolan-Neylan
Games Warehouse
http://www.gameswarehouse.com.au/
(02) 9648-5656
Sent: Wednesday, 22 October 2008 2:01 PMTo: Customer ServiceSubject: Everquest II - The Shadow Odyssey
Hello,
I was in the process of placing an order for Everquest II - The Shadow Odyssey and now it says that it is sold out (it didn't when I began the process). Are you going to be getting more in stock?
Look forward to your reply.
Kind regards
So looks like Australian players at least can not get the retail version at all...
Extremely disappointed by this. Really poor customer service to disadvantage all of your international players...