"'incentive' that could also help bring attention to investing in ASICMINER" is certainly not friedcat's concern. why? because bitfountain is not selling any shares and wont be for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, there should be NO special treatment of shareholders. There is no overall profit maximizing effect in favoring shareholders. If you want to buy, buy like everyone else.
you beat me to it - no new investors are being courted, and original investors are already made whole. Best thing for everyone involved is to find the best balance between mining and hardware sales, and treat existing shareholders as nothing but the target for dividends that they are. (Personally, I think it would be best to mine as much as possible with this hardware while developing the next gen, and then start selling the current hardware right as nextgen is rolled out for our own mining process... basically, mine with cutting edge while selling the stuff we just finished mining with. Of course, I don't have enough info to do the actual math to see if that's really the best way to go, but that's my perspective from way over here)