agreed. its the equivalent of telling some one "here is the very first iPod, but it will cost you $350 to try it, if it works well, we will release 450 million iPods, but at a cheaper price."

There is only 44 million coins out in the wild out of a possible 500 million. The devs should release a block of coins, say 20 million, and put a sell wall well below the current market price say 4k SAT or even cheaper. it shouldn't cost 1.5 BTC to participate in a beta. They would still raise money, get more people involved in the beta, which will look amazing in regards to media and advertising.