I am asserting that your last sentence is marginalizing other factors. It isn't really as "Simple" as "He gambled on BFL delivering and lost." Anyone, even today, who is purchasing a mining device that they don't receive instantly in their possession is gambling on a number of variables and (hopefully) considers the potential difficulty increase, the exchange rate, and how the latter most noticeably drives the former.
Your sentence immediately preceding these two confirms this, in a way:
That customer will be worse off having ordered that miner
The customer would have been worse off
literally buying anything at all with BTC. They were also gambling against the exchange rate, and they lost that too. Big time, unfortunately.
The delays, while extremely unfortunate in cases like these, do not eliminate other variables despite how much emotional energy the distressed customer might allow them (or convince them) to psychologically.
Ok ThatDGuy.
I think we can see where the disconnect is with these guys. They are basically saying that the exchange rate has absolutely nothing to do with their investment in BTC. So yes, I agree that if your sole purpose was to mine BTC and hold on to BTC with no regard to how much they are actually WORTH in USD.. then yes, you will not get back an equal amount of BTC.
But in an effort to get out of the "only black and white" and into the grey area (which is where most of us miners exist)...
So in their minds, if someone paid ~24BTC today to buy a Single, and they received their miner in September, and let's say the USD price in September (when they receive their Single) of a bitcoin was down to $15 USD. Lets also say that because of this dramatic price drop that several thousands of people with ASIC and GPU miners left bitcoin mining therefore making the difficulty drop dramatically. So with the new price and difficulty, let's say it is possible for a person to make 48 BTC in 6 months. Would you concider it a wise investment? You originally paid 24 BTC and now within 6 months you have DOUBLED your BTC!! So originally you paid 24BTC (at the time worth 2400$) and in September-February you mined 48 BTC (at the time worth $720). But of course since these people don't care about exchange rates, THEY WIN!! right?
..and please don't knit pick about the specifics of this theoretical situation. This is not to argue what the price/difficulty/ of BTC will be in the future, or to speculate on BFL's shipping schedule. This is SPECIFICALLY designed to show you the mentality of people like k9quaint and others arguing this point. The fact is, MOST of us actually care what the exchange rate is on a BTC. If BTC's exchange rate were to stay the same, I, along with the majority of miners would rather have 20 bitcoins worth 100$ than 200 bitcoins worth 1$. Obvious there is a small amount of people who don't so there is really no arguing with them. Either they have an ENTIRELY different way of thinking or they are trolling. Either way they will not be swayed.
However what I AM saying is that most people (except for the VERY small percentage of people in this thread) care how much return they get back in fiat.. Wells Fargo still doesn't take BTC for my mortgage payment and if it did, it would STILL be based on how much BTC is worth in dollars