I'm not sure that being more open here would have helped BFL all that much. To many that have already posted, this product has been (and perhaps still is) nothing more than vapourware, or the 'magic unicorn'. Being more open wouldn't have changed the 'photos or it didn't happen' sentiments floating around here. BTW, I am not in that camp.

One powerful strategic advantage for BFL is that they could announce the imminent availability of a 1Ghps @ 20W FPGA box. Surely that would scare the living daylights out of any existing FPGA competitor. And not only the ones already shipping product; perhaps more importantly for BFL, it would scare anyone even THINKING about designing/developing a new FPGA design. The designers familiar with FPGA designs in general, and bitcoin mining requirements specifically, would be left scratching their collective heads how such performance/price numbers are even remotely possible.

For BFL, witholding these details is maintains their competitive advantage. And was (and continues to be) in their best interests to keep public details to a minimum, so that FUD would hang over any potential competitor contemplating a similar product.

Providing the chip details to the public (i.e. from us, the forum members) doesn't really help BFL. So what if we know what chip they are using? Does it matter? What matters is that they get the claimed performance/power/price. Granted, if they told us they are using a Stratix III EP3SL200 or 260 we could at least be confident that the performance numbers are kosher. However, knowing that these are $4k chips, there would be disbelief that they could somehow sell a $10k board for under $1k.

So how would that help their credibility with us? It wouldn't. It would still be a 'magic unicorn' to the same group of people here, only a different colored one. The only thing that would dispell the FUD for this sometimes-vocal group of forum members would be product shipments and subsequent test results.