Is there a possibility of buying just the components un-assembled? Meaning, just the chips, the PCB, and all the associated capacitors/connectors/resistors, so we do all the soldering ourselves?
Even better, is there an option of just the asic's and the PCB un-assembled so we purchase all the passives and whatnot ourselves and solder it together ourselves??
IIRC Steamboat mentioned a few pages back this would be possible. Of course you could always have the PCBs fabbed yourself through OSHPark (or similar) and pickup the components yourself, leaving just the chip order with Steamboat. I personally LOVE OSHPark, the boards are always great quality. $10 a sq/inch for 4 layer boards might seem steep but you get three copies of the board for that price!
http://www.oshpark.com/pricingFYI BKKcoins does not have final board files available yet but when he does they will appear here most likely:
https://github.com/bkkcoins/klondike/tree/master/kicad/k16/plots