I feel like it's worth to put things in perspective considering some of the replies I've read.

The option of 'having miners ASAP' is not realistic, otherwise I guess everyone in this group would want exactly that. We are in the situation where ASAP has no definite date, and that's why we are voting.

In short, the options are (someone correct me if I'm wrong):

1) Wait an undetermined number of days until the chips are shipped. Apparently no one knows how many. Maybe Avalon, but they're not sharing that info with us. Or maybe not even them. It could be days, it could be weeks, maybe even over a month. I would suggest to make your risk assessments and ROI calculations, with the increasing difficulty taking all those factors in mind and the optimistic/avg/pessimistic estimations before deciding.

2) Ask for a refund, a rare occurrence in the world of Bitcoin investments. Considering Avalon is nice enough to offer the chance for refund, I think it's wise to consider it. Getting a refund does not necessarily take us out of the mining picture, we could reinvest these funds into real on-stock miners from other companies, or Avalon itself when they have the new generation ones. Even buy them directly from Steve when he gets them in stock and starts his shares model.

All in all, I am obviously in the group that prefers a refund, but I've tried to explain the situation from a neutral point of view. In my opinion these are the 2 situations and that's how you should decide the refund for Batch 1, not based on non-realistic desires.

Regards.