In my opinion pre-orders still help coming up with new hardware ideas having a significant design cost, but you should only take part in a pre-order for new setups growing from the developer community where the guys
have a proven track record - others can, well, chase investors like everybody else does.
in the real world, pre-orders have a 30 day grace period.
if a company cant make a product, and deliver it in that time. they should not be requesting pre-orders, but a kickstarter fund with an incentive that those that invest will get x amount of product dependant on their investment level. or a profit after the prodct actually starts selling (once manufactured).
no company should confuse pre-order money, with manufacturing and design investments.