The larger point is that ASICMiner wouldn't be pricing the boards at 420 BTC if they felt they are going to produce 3000 BTC. It just highlight how much BFL failure to deliver has cost those that trusted the company. Nobody paid 3,000 BTC for a mini rig because they believed that it would only produce 500 BTC. They did so because they felt the rig would produce >3000 BTC in revenue. It would have if BFL had "only" been 6 months late.
You may ask why is this relevant? Well because today BFL is offering a "new and improved" product for ~40 BTC and saying "trust us" we will deliver on time. If they don't buyers will lose again and who knows months before they deliver someone else will offer a competing product for 6 BTC.
You do know there are
some people hashing away with Mini-rigs right now? I don't think they are complaining too much. They're too busy trying to stash their piles bitcoins somewhere safe, lol.
And yes, I do know there are many others still waiting. But sometimes the risk is worth the reward. Other times... not so much. But you certainly won't gain anything if you don't take some risk. And you can minimize risk by hedging (splitting orders between different ASIC vendors and/or buying BTC) and doing research.
Is the pile going to be 3,000 BTC big? Isn't that the real question? Does the unit have value for the money spent?