I suspect Bitmain is having their current fire sale in the hope of getting their money back out of the BM1385 chips they've already bought before they become almost worthless due to next-gen miners blowing them out of the water - and I have some doubt that Bitmain was expecting Bitfury to go public on THEIR next-gen chip much less start pushing it to anyone OTHER than huge farms.
I get the strong impression Bitmain's answer to the new bitFury chip hasn't even taped out yet, or taped out recently enough they aren't going to have a new miner available before the halfing - leaving them rather behind the curve on what should prove to be THE most important ASIC generation in Bitcoin mining history (other than perhaps the original generation gear).
Pretty much none of this fits with previous Bitmain action or logic.
I still agree with QuintLeo, the BM1385 chip has been possibly the worst chip Bitmain has ever developed besides the BM1382 for ROI + profit.
You're saying that from a miner's perspective, not Bitmain's perspective though. Your finances and success are not their finances and success.
True, the S3 was a bandwagon miner (people heard about the success of the S1)and it was possibly one of their bestsellers. S5 not as much, because the bandwagon died when people heard about the S3's fail. S7 seems to be another bandwagon miner as the roi is crap, but people are buying it up pretty fast. Overall the popularity of Bitmain miners has remained stable as people are leaving and hopping on the bandwagon at a equal speed.