Just some general comments:

1. We decided to consult the community because like we promised we want IOTA to be a community effort that is transparent and open from day1. We would of course never launch a deficient IOTA, but these optimizations came about after some discussions of some potential utility issues that could be improved. Then CfB had some revelations and decided to ask the community. At the end of the day we of course make a decision and stand behind it, but again we want to include the IOTA community as much as possible

2. Re: delay. This has been explained at length already. We could have launched IOTA at the end of December, yes, but it would not have been the optimal IOTA, plus it would have had a shit UI, which would not really have mattered for IoT devices, but since the community requested it we decided to set aside funds and time to develop a proper UI for first impression reasons, since we raised enough funds for this to be done. During this period we discovered some optimization and implemented it too. This is the inevitable nature of developing/creating virtually *anything*, you can keep improving and optimizing forever. So ~1.5 month 'delay' due to optimizing and accepting the community's request for a sleek GUI is really nothing to worry about.

3. Inevitably there are some speculators that just want to pump and dump. If this is you: we don't care about you, you are on your own. This has been our attitude from day 1, which we have been explicit about precisely because IOTA is a IoT tech project, not a crypto-activist movement, not a investor-speculator-scheme, but technology. Our focus is on the technology, as should everyone elses.

4. Since one guy asked 'WHERE IS DAVID?' after not having been active 1(!) day on the forum I should probably address this too. First of all if you want to follow IOTA real time: join our Ryver. I have been active there every day. Secondly we (entire IOTA team) have been available every day since we announced IOTA. Literally. Even on Christmas and New years eve. If one of us is AFK for a few hours or even a whole day, that does not mean ANYTHING.