That will change in time as Bitcoin evolves more.
As long as companies know they have consumers by the balls regarding hardware preorders, none of this will change.. preorders.. refunds.. etc. When it becomes more profitable to have stuff in stock, they will have it in stock. When it's profitable to refund quickly--as they did in the past--they will do so.
I am just not sure who makes these ASIC chips, is it the companies like KNC miner or is there another manufacture like Intel?
There is a lot of really intelligent people on bitcointalk.org that know how to make the boards, so really the lag in the marketplace is the manufacture of the chips. I am surprised there isn't a company other than Avalon ASIC manufacturing ASIC chips in China, they certainly seem to have a lot of resources there.
Once the bitcoin world gets over this hurtle things will only get better.
