They DID take into account the possibility of everything going wrong. The way I saw it right from the start was that late October was an "if everything goes right" release date, and January 1st was an "if everything goes wrong" release date. Obviously, they are now expecting to exceed their January 1st date, which irks me, but I was only expecting product before then if things went well.
Yeah, I believe that anyone who thought they'd be mining with any ASIC before the reward drop - no matter which vendor they ordered from - was delusional. What these delays do mean, though, is that the time period between first batch customers and second batch customers receiving their orders will be greatly reduced. I suspect many customers will be displeased about losing that particular advantage as they believe it's one they effectively paid for and it's one which is created at least in part by BFL's decisions.