I was eagerly looking forward to this and hoping it would be priced with a reasonable chance of ROI.
The problem with running an auction for the first machines (as happened with asicminer) is that there are enough people who don't care about ROI and just want to have new equipment that the price ends up being way too high.
The manufacturer then sees that people will pay $4500 for it and prices it accordingly.
^^ This...
x2, but not shocking given the current spike in BTC and current hardware climate.. it is a herp a derp market out there and this operation looks to take full advantage of it..