I have been playing White in Japanese and it is a very good Pokémon game. I have not seen any good preorder bonuses; waiting until you definitely have the money is a fine plan. (There are barely any preorder bonuses at all; Toys R Us has some kind of wall cling but meh.) If you want to transfer any of your pokémon from earlier games, you will need to borrow a second DS from someone and play a silly minigame.

I'm driving a van full of nerds up to the event in Indy, barring catastrophe. :)

Have you finished your Pokédex yet?