I preordered the bASIC because of these reasons, from most important to least:

• All the good words about cablepair's transparency in the forums
• They were the only one with batch 1 pre-orders remaining when I discovered ASICs
• BTC was continuously getting weaker in October and I wanted to lock in a higher price for my BTC
• If I was scammed, I would just forget about bitcoin completely, since the BTC I paid with were from mining on a $200 initial investment

I should have refunded earlier when the transparency stopped around December, but I was blinded by the "place in line" concept.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

I finally asked for a refund on his drunken post (I got it last Friday).  I will still buy a bASIC if it is realized, but not a pre-order anymore.

I do not blame them for refunding USD equivalent instead of the BTC I paid.  I lost the bet that BTC prices would keep declining.  It was entirely up to cablepair whether to risk holding the BTC or convert them to USD immediately, and is completely unrelated to the customer.  I certainly would not expect them to ask me for more BTC if BTC kept on declining.  Likewise, I did not expect them to refund me the original BTC amount if BTC strengthened.  (I guess we will never know if he would have refunded more BTC if it had kept on declining.)