Good point. It's almost certain that batch one will get "stuck" as you say with die-hards and people that just don't care.
It's been stated that no one will be forced to take a refund. It would be nice to see it explicitly stated that one one will be denied a refund either.
Common sense should tell you that that is impossible (or mathematically exceedingly unlikely).
The sebastianju / zefir approach, was to refund a batch if more than 50% wanted to refund. They are effectively screwing some people who wanted chips or boards instead of a refund (i.e. forced refunding) in favour of a majority who asked for a refund. Steamboat is doing the opposite, he is only refunding batches once requests cover an entire batch, therefore practically guaranteeing that some people who ask for a refund will not get one, in favour of some who either want chips / boards or cannot be bothered to reply. Either way someone gets screwed. (Unless the number of people who want chips / boards adds up to a multiple of 10,000).