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I think it's borderline ridiculous to think a scam would first start with the heavy engineering required to develop FPGA's just as a trick to hook us for a larger ASIC run. If you think they started out with the intention to scam, well then I think they've realized they've stumbled onto a "more profitable if legitimate" business. Developing FPGA's is not trivial, nor is the amount of engineering that has gone into BFL's already developed products. ...
Has anyone run the numbers on this? I've not paid attention to mining gear up 'till this point, though I may when we are into a generation or two of ASIC, but it occurs to me that people can produce reasonably complex gear (i.e., Maple boards or Soekris) for a decent price even doing a fair amount of original hardware work. If much of the work can be taken from open source, it could be surprisingly cheap and low skill to get some vaguely functional inventory on the street.