I think the SEC charging Pirateat40 has made Josh a little nervous and testy. It seams the Feds are taking fraud in the Bitcoin space more seriously than some had thought. 
You may be right. More seriously than I had thought, I'll admit. My view was they would let bitcoin fraud and crime consume it from the inside. I guess that that fraud was so egregious, and so clearly fraught with securities violations, that they couldn't let it go. The pre-sales, though, I'm still not sure there will be governmental intervention. That said, I've been surprised that BFL hasn't been more aggressive in "correcting" posters on these forums when the term "investor" rather than "presale customer" was used. Sure, it would be a stretch to associate a presale with an unregistered investment, since it was tied to a specific item, but, still, you can't be too careful when you're running close to an edge.
I'm willing to bet that a lot more refund requests were made once the SEC article about Pirate got released, especially by investors further down the queue. Those close to the top of the queue may not request a refund, opting to take a calculated gamble, the same gamble by those made too late in Pirate's Ponzi Scheme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqcL0mjMjw