TSA Pre isn't always better. We were at IAH and had no Pre, we saw that in the Pre queue they asked everyone to take their laptops out and shoes off, but not us. It happened to us once at other airports as well, once Mr had no Pre so we had to split. He got out much faster than us.
This is a bit like Marriott SNA, it's not that you are getting a suite upgrade but a chance to get a suite upgrade. Here you are buying a chance to get faster immigration and faster security - as there is no guarantee what the queue would be like. I think most of the time you get faster CBP processing, but it's not necessary like that all the time.