[mkl]

Are you sure you're wrong?

The relevant sentence seems to be "If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year." (emphasis mine)

Apple takes the comission as you go, so it sounds like they take 15% of each sale until you hit $1M, and then 30% for every sale after that.

The next year they'd take 30% right from the start though, so a good year followed by a bad one would be unfortunate.