I can tell you one reason why i bought the s7 was because they made it easy. And the easiest part being new to the game was they sold the power supply. I looked at the avalon and while I was new and trying to figure out who was a legit place to buy from, bitmain made it easy.
As I learn more, I may not go that route in the future, but like I said, right now i;m keeping my pool small so I can learn before I go big.
We own an IT company, so this kind of falls right in our laps, we have staff with free cycles that can help manage and maintain, so my costs are very low compared to others. As long as we do it right we could do well!
Buying from Bitmain is easy when paying with bitcoin through their website while Paying via any other method is next to impossible. Any sort of customer support is virtually nonexistent so once you have an issue, you will learn like many here have already that Bitmain will not be very helpful. It would have been a smart PR move on Bitmain's part to do an S7 giveaway with this pool or be more active within this community. My next miner will be an Avalon mostly because they supported this pool with the contest plus everyone talks highly of the quality
I sold my Avalon 6 at a loss. I do not mine inside my house, I mine in my garage and at hosting sites so noise isn't an issue. A6 stopped mining when my ambient temp went a little over 90F but all of my S7s and Titan kept hashing. A6 was pulling more power than S7 for hash rate it was providing, and it was no where near per Avalon's specification. I did have to contact Bitmain for a replacement board for an early Batch 1 out of 20 or so S7s purchased. Bitmain replaced the board and even paid for shipping both ways. So, I will probably keep buying Bitmain products until someone has a cheaper and more efficient miner for sale.