Compare the history of EA games going on sale at EA store and sold through their download service, vs the history of games in general going on sale at steam. EA doesn't do sales very often.
There's multiple things wrong with making that assumption.
First up is the fact that the size of the libraries are completely different. Steam has a vastly larger catalog, so they can have individual games on sale more often without requiring repeats.
Second, believe it or not, the concept of the "Steam sale" is actually quite recent. It's only within the last year or so that they've really pushed the concept of having frequent sales, before that, they were much more rare.
Third, we are talking about an MMO, which generally has a different sales system than typical games do, thanks to issues like monthly fees.
Fourth, EA has had a store for awhile, but Origin is new. Who's to say that Origin will be run in exactly the same fashion as the old EA store was?
At the end of the day, most of the complaints have little in substance, and seem to fall back on "I get my games through Steam, I don't want to have to bother getting one from somewhere else". Fair enough, but that's not an actual criticism of Origin, it's just you being set in your ways (using the generic "you").
That's not to say there aren't valid criticisms of Origin, but I've yet to see them listed.