And people complain because they are losing money......never ceases to amaze. If you didn't see this coming, you have no one to blame but yourself. It has been covered extensively for months..(almost a year at this point) that this would happen.
The real kick in the teeth is that people have been waiting for many months (or over a year) for hardware that was promised to have shipped long ago - when it was going to be worth something! This difficulty rise is just pouring salt in the wounds for many people...
Alas, the ability to print money is relegated to the rich yet again... go figure.
Another way of looking at that is it was THEFT. A company had produced the unit, mined with it and then shipped 12 months late by any definition that is theft.
I think that it is everything but not theft. It should be fraud. They use the money of the customers to mine bitcoins, they do not communicate on a trustworthy base (they throw smoke grenades all the time) and eventually, when the mining devices are not cost-sufficient anymore in regions where electricity does cost something, they ship it, having been able to consumate all financial benefits but still giving the customer all the risks.
Fraud. Coldly calculated, they tell customers false facts (those facts are primarily for preventing the customer to withdraw their order). Unfortunately, they are still given a forum and opportunity to make advertising on bitcointalk.org - but still i understand what implications exist when locking out particular corporates based on accusations and not real, solid jurisdictions. But after seeing the behaviour of certain BFL people, i am pretty sure, that it will not take too long until the legal jackhammer will hit BFL.