If BFL is purposely slowing the Minirig line, to force big-money investors to switch their investment to the Monarch line, this would be very troubling.
You cannot switch to monarch if you have an order in "fullfilled" state (after one mini rig has shipped).
I suspect they are running out of cases or other parts.
BTW, slowing the shipment rate, only helps the early adopters.
People who have late mini rig orders will switch to monarch, just a matter of time.