Even if the specs were 50% off, it would still demolish FPGA's and GPU's which are the only other players in the game. At 1.75 ghash @ 50 watts (50% less power, 5-10x more power) for $150, that would absolutely murder the QuadMiner which is 840 mhash @ 20 watts for $1,070. Would I be upset if they didn't meet their original marks? Sure. Would I return my preorders? No, because I certainly won't be buying a FPGA or more GPU's.

Even at my outrageous $0.25/kw rate, my 7970 can push 630 mhash at 220 watts and you can get one for $400; I'm actually more efficient now and I paid less than $300 for my 7970. Just for the power savings alone against the QuadMiner would be 180 watts or 129.6kw per 30 day month or $32.40 extra in electricity and 25% less hashing power. Based on current difficulty and BTC at $11 USD, I would make $139/month from QuadMiner and $104/month from a single 7970 or $35 less USD, add in $32.40 for electricity and that's $67.40 in lost profit and additional operating expenses. Now factor in additional capital costs of $680, and it would take me 10 months to break even (well over a year if you had cheap electricity). The question is whether you believe someone can make an ASIC in 10 months, even a "shitty" one.

Bottom line, 1) even if BFL doesn't give us near what they originally quoted, they would still reign supreme because they would still blow everyone out of the water, 2) even if BFL does not put out a single ASIC chip, the ball is already rolling and we may see ASIC's from a different vendor in a year anyways, 3) FPGA and GPU's are either running the gravy train (on us, the consumers) or just won't be worth the effort if you are in this for profit.