Understandable, what makes you think they will be shipping soon?
The updates they've given on the butterflylabs.com forum. They have the chips now, it's just a matter of bumping, packaging, and assembling the units before they can ship. Provided nothing goes wrong, it should be quite soon. If something goes wrong, it could be another few months (hence the 12 weeks bit). But I think there is a good chance they'll be shipping soon.
don't you find it at least the slightest bit odd that they refuse to take pictures of the chips? the bumping? nothing?
posts like this must disturb even the strongest BFL supporter: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/1034-february-14th-2012-update-discussion-thread-8.html#post15426
Not at all. The bumping is being done by a 3rd party company in California, and no BFL reps are over there. How could they expect to take pictures of the process or the chips?