1. When I talked about comparing to other minign companies that's what I meant. Mining companies - not ASIC manufacturers who don't mine OR have shares on the market. You were trying to value ASICMINER as though it were just a mining company - hence I was comparing to those.
I guess this is a valid point, it's not quite clear what asicminer actually does. A synthesis between ASIC producer & vendor and mining company. I guess it's perfectly possible dividends be in the future impacted by gains from selling rigs or costs from producing them, for a positive or negative net.
2. Pretty sure (as in certain) friedcat said the yield was around 95%. I agree there's no info on subsequent failure rate - but unless it's ridiculously high there's little meaning to it yet.
I must've missed that part. 95% on a good wafer run seems certainly credible. The subsequent failure rate being exceptionally high is one way to account for the dithering apparent output. As someone else said, speculation.
3. I agree there's been no bills presented yet. But then I've never seen bills for expenses charged to other companies - e.g. where's the invoice for S.DICE's consultancy this month? Or S.MPOE's payment for PR? Whether they were paid in BTC, USD or WOW gold has no real bearing on what quality of accounting is required - as with ASICMINER there's no proof either of those items were ever charged for or paid. As a (small) shareholder in ASICMINER I'd far rather time was spent getting the rest of the gear mining than preparing accounts right now - though I DO definitely expect them to be prepared in the not too distant future.
There's perhaps some difference here between purely BTC ventures and fiat-anchored ventures. Either way, it'd seem to me you're moving the discussion from the germane to the not so germane. If you wish to introduce a $1 dollar per chip price point in this discussion, it is not unreasonable for me to wish to see some sort of invoice saying this many dollars for this many chips. That way we can compute the per-chip cost and have an answer. This is not in any way related to the discussion of whether deductions are or aren't appropriate and indeed I imagine it will be quite a long while before such a thing as BTC invoices exist, or BTC incomes are seriously reported by private parties (such as consultants).
4. Not so convinced about Avalon's under-promise and over-deliver. Their ordering was barely delivered at all and their claims of "we've shipped" actually meant "we've sent out a few prototype units and the rest will go in a month's time". They're certainly saints compared to BFL - but, as you pointed out, using BFL as a comparison for ANYONE is setting the bar rather low.
Okay well, thinking about it, using "overdeliver" about anyone in ASICs is ridiculous. I retract.
I can appreciate 5., it seems pretty much the only reasonable way to handle this. If indeed we believe a majority of players (at least, of those left with any BTC worth the mention) follow it then my original prediction about price evolution may not be all that far off after all: an inverse tickmark, open at .65, go perhaps as high as 1 (+50%), then go to .1 (or .2, maybe).
As to 6...this is perhaps true, and if it is in fact true it is setting the stages for some very serious problems down the road - not with AM particularly, but in general and across the board. Free entreprise on a global scale may well be thwarted by a shared stereotypism where "they are bad" is well and satisfactorily proven to either side. I guess this is something of a sleeping dragon or somesuch.