IOTA Big Deal donations will be considered that, donations (to foundation), because the labour involved in resolving those that donate and those that don't is too great.
If anyone has an issue with this and want their iotas back, speak now. The deal is not about ROI anyway, only about the big deal happening for IOTA's ecosystem
When and why did this change from a favored rate sale to a donation?
It's still a sale, but all proceeds go to foundation. The reason is quite simple: we don't have time time to differentiate 10s or hundreds of different people's requests, what rate they want to sell at, which want to forward to foundation and not etc. would take weeks
Sounds like a detailed writeup regarding the specifics of this deal is soon needed (respecting NDA's or whatever), imo. Frankly it is clear as mud and to expecting another 83 Tiota, within a week no less, that will need to be resolved hastily.