BFL did not receive bitcoins for preorders. BFL received USD and allowed customers to exchange BTC for USD using BitPay for their own convenience.
Customers paid in BTC. Bitpay acted on behalf of BFL (like a bank or credit card company would) to receive that BTC. What BFL instructed Bitpay to do with that BTC after receiving it is BFL's business. If BFL received USD from Bitpay, then it was only because BFL instructed Bitpay to convert the BTC into USD.
When a customer placed an order they immediately exchanged their BTC for USD and used that USD to pay for the order. This is exactly the same as if you sold bitcoins for cash, deposited cash into your bank account, then used your debit card to pay for the preorder, except that it is much much easier and quicker. BFL did not gamble on any currency, they did exactly the opposite.
You clearly did not read the bitpay faq here:
https://bitpay.com/faqBitpay does what the merchant instructs with the funds. If BFL wanted the BTC so they could escrow it and refund it like they claimed to, then Bitpay would have sent them BTC. If BFL wanted to instead spend that BTC on operations and development, then Bitpay would have converted it to USD for them.
My mistake, you are correct. Didn't realize there were multiple options for what happened with your funds.