"A whole 80 something dollars" works out to about $115 Canadian. -snip- but it isn't an insignificant amount to me or to most people.
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That being said, I also don't think that for most people eighty dollars constitutes a completely major purchase either - especially when compared to the overall cost of the PC build this is presumably going into. Perhaps I have a misconception that with successively larger purchases (i.e. home appliances, a vehicle, etc.) from established corporations the expectation of delivering on something like an anticipated release date should reasonably increase. Conversely it seems logical to me that a relatively modest purchase from a small business run by a valued member of our own community can understandably be more susceptible to hiccups and perhaps said small business owner could face less harsh criticism as a result.
I didn't expect my "needs/wants met immediately", it was a pre-order. What I expect is that if I pay for a pre-order and they provide a date for when they expect to have it in stock, that my order should ship near that date. If for some reason they aren't able to ship it near that time that's fine, but a simple 1-2 sentence email saying you are still working on it goes a long way, takes less than a minute to write, and can be sent to everyone whose order is delayed at the same time.
While I agree that a short email would be nice and would hope to receive one myself were I to enquire about the unit I've pre-ordered, I am also willing to cut Larry some slack knowing he is a one man operation running HDPlex on his evenings and weekends. Perhaps you weren't privy to this fact (in which case this is completely my fault for assuming), but this is more or less common knowledge amongst the community here. Presumably Larry is receiving dozens of emails wondering why things haven't been shipped yet as well as providing support to existing clients and dealing with larger clients in other capacities. I'm sure he's just picking his battles due to limited time and energy. Of the three, I think supporting existing product owners and dealing with larger projects ends up being the better investment of limited resources.
I don't believe my money or my project are more important than others. I never said anything remotely close to that. What I think is that if 50 people go into the same coffee shop and order the same thing, then the first 10 in line should get their coffee before the last 10 who didn't show up until significantly later.
I completely agree with this on a logical level and were shipping being handled by Larry personally on a item by item basis I am sure this is how it would happen. Reality is that large batches of units will be managed by a logistics company and they will no doubt do order fulfilment in a sequence that best suits their profitability while still getting units out in a reasonable amount of time. I betcha Canada is really far down that list 'cause Canada (I am Canadian too, just so you don't take offence).
Maybe in your private communications with him the 25th was mentioned as an "optimistic" date that he was going to post on his website as a "courtesy". I wasn't a part of any such conversation, I just saw the ETA listed on the product page as the 25th. There wasn't any elaboration on that date saying it was an ambitious goal and he would try his best to meet it. It was the ETA and nothing more, so I'm not sure why I should have interpreted it as optimistic or... as a courtesy.
Pretty sure the official website literally said ETA June 25th. Unless I am mistaken that means that the Estimated Time of Arrival is June 25th and that by definition an ETA is not firm. Also he didn't relay to me in any communications that providing an ETA was a courtesy, I am merely inferring that providing an ETA is a courtesy rather than completely leaving your customer base in the dark.
All I said is that I don't plan to take pre-orders nor provide a warehouse arrival date that can apparently be misconstrued as a "start shipping date" or "arrive on my doorstep date" so I don't have to be trashed in public for failing to meet some random dude's expectations. Once I have my units in warehouse, ready to ship I will open orders and then proceed to provide the best service I can to my clients while juggling a full time job and three young children. Hopefully people won't get too miffed if I get behind on emails from time to time.
The other thing worth considering is that perhaps your unit has shipped and it's just stuck in godawful customs limbo?
