Bingo.
I waded through pages on BS to find that I should have just read the last page.
The vendors currently have WAY too much bargaining power, to the point where buyers are at best investors and at worst losers with no legal recourse. This forum serves buyers primarily because against such malpractices the only means of effective recourse is sharing of information.
Not doing much of anything is a factor of causality. How? When the forum organizes itself to vote 1000 votes in overwhelming majority to label a certain vendor, what the forum goers are saying is that they would rather stop hating and let the common consensus have their say (sounds terribly bitcoin doesn't it?). The point of this is to clear up the hatred, and waste of space. At the same time it is a very effective means of getting the vendors to clean up their act. Done. Solution right there on your lap. Ready and waiting. For eternity.
So. When the proposition arises that we should stop all the hate and how, I find it terribly odd that only after 8 pages of post has somebody dared to point the finger squarely at the OP.
Or to put in more directly, just do what you're supposed to. If you can't then set up a sub forum for somebody who can.
You've actually hit the nail on the head, but refuse to see it. Bitcoin mining is not a guarantee of profit, only a guarantee of income. People buying mining equipment are exactly like investors buying stock in a company, speculating that they will make more money than they spent. You could have bought a bond (no real comparision, but could substitute BTC here) instead, and had a fair guarantee of income. You could also have just kept mining with whatever equipment you had until electricity costs made it no longer worthwhile and definitely had profit.
With all the different companies racing to put their product into play, it comes down to whether you bet on the right horse or not. While Avalon did beat BFL to market and the people betting on them won big, but only 1500 people maximum could take that bet... the others lost out. In addition, the people who bought ASICMiner shares at .1 also made out like bandits with the share price dangling around 5BTC not long ago. BUT, how many of those original shareholders still had shares when it hit that high? I count myself lucky as I got into the ASMICMiners shares at 2.4 and sold a majority of them at 4.8 and then the remainder of them at 3.7. With the price back at 2.4, I won, but whoever bought my shares didn't.
I've never spent a single BTC I've earned, I've invested some and won big, I've invested some and lost, in the long run I have well over 2x what I would have had I sat on everything I mined. My profit though was someone else's loss. There is no way to get around that.