Since BFL is not delivering, Avalon seems to have a monopoly in the consumer ASIC market, and the lucky receivers of their second batch are making far too much bitcoin in a short period, effectively giving them too much power in the bitcoin economy. There should have been more ASICS, or none at all... The current situation is not good IMO.
If a big semiconductor company, or at least a semiconductor company lead by specialists, who had previously developped some system was making those ASIC miners they would be selling very cheap, very fast. Why? Demand, and BTC price stabilizing somewhere in the 5 - 15$ range.
However, BFL never had a concept before, never had a layout before, never had experience before. What they did was buying a domain, creating a stylish website and advertising on google. The rest is history.