Alright, I was probably going to play it anyway even with dips down to the low 20s. But if we're not even at the full release yet and the modding scene is already squeezing more out of that bottom 1%, I'm just biting the bullet and buying the damned game.
For anyone in the same boat, Fanatical is selling the pre-release versions of the game for 17% off, packaged with a random "highly rated" Steam game. My freebie was Reventure, which is regularly $8.99 CAD.