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).
But fact is that majority (more then 50%) want to have refund because that chip is refunded in original btc paid amount. Those chips now does not worth such money and majority agree in such. Also chip count matters and not individuals buyers. Buyer who bought 1000 chips has maybe different approach of somebody who bought 16 enough for one board.