Do I need to apologize to all the "BFL will ship" betters for not taking my device with me when I flew home? From my persepctive, claiming BFL has not shipped is clearly nitpicking a technicality.

Are "BFL won't ship" betters going to claim that I am to blame for accepting a device I was expecting to receive last year, after I had been waiting over 10 months for my order? This is absurd.

I do see that since my device was prior to the first batch, which has not shipped, it might be debatable. But on the other hand, it's certainly not a clear-cut result either, because the terms specifically said non-employee; considering that it was known in advance that third-party software developers would receive their units prior to the first batch, the specifying of non-employee IMO clearly includes myself or any of the other pre-batch 1 units that had been paid for.
Edit: Also note that Avalon also established a precedent for delivering non-mainstream units to meet deadlines.

It's true that the Little Single was not part of the original product lineup, and that I had to change one of my Single orders into two Little Singles (I have at least one of each product ordered for variety of testing), but this IMO is also a technicality and not really relevant.

The claim that my device is not what other customers will receive may be true - but I see it akin to the (very common) practice of other hardware manufs to revise boards without changing the model number. This is clearly a Little Single, even if most customers will be receiving a later revision of the Little Single.

To conclude, I think calling it a draw is within the perrogative of the judge, but I still believe pre-April is the honest winner.