Considering these units are likely used units with previous use, there's definitely the chance that some units may be a bit dusty and need cleaning, though Bitmain has proven us wrong in the past and they've shipped out well-cleaned machines or machines with low use hours. The tariff does kill the break-even period in the United States where I unfortunately live like you said; I love mining, but at this moment it's either I get GPUs and mine with those or just buy and hold with the fees on top of the shipping costs and all.

The new design definitely doesn't bode well for future miners, and I wonder if Bitmain PSU prices on the secondhand market will drop as a result of this. I personally think there's a very high chance any future Scrypt miners will use a similar form factor to the S/T15s, but only time can tell.