I don't think this was planned as a scam, they are not smart enough for such. HashLast was just an unlucky accumulation of incompetence.
I do. It doesn't take much intelligence to realize that in the Bitcoin ASIC market if you lie about your delivery date you can get people to pay more for your product than they would if given the truth. In hindsight it's pretty clear they knew their promised Oct. date was a big fib from the start. They may have run into additional problems along the way that made it difficult for them to get away with their initial plan but it was a scam none the less.