ORIGINAL: bustergonad
Many people that either put down a deposit or paid in full for their truck but have not yet got one, while there are hobby shops out there that just have them sitting on the shelf. CEN's whole deal with delaying the release as long as they did was to make sure they had enough trucks to cover the initial pre-orders, what they failed to tell anyone was that they were only sending to LHS's and that everybody else would have to wait for the second shipment. I understand their commitment to support LHS's but would it have been that difficult for CEN to have verified that all the LHS's pre-orders were actually accounted for rather than the LHS just telling CEN "send us 20 trucks, we'll sell 'em". I and many others are being made to wait just because we ordered through online merchants. That, to me, is not right. We went through the whole not knowing when the shipment will arrive with the first batch, we are making a commitment to CEN by saying we are going to buy your truck (through pre-orders) the least CEN could do is keep us up to date with what is going on.
Buster
Without knowing when the on-line shops actually placed their order, or if they over-sold the orders they did put in, I will not blame CEN for customer pre-orders not being filled yet. Personally, I will not pre-order anything. I'm more than happy to wait until there is part support rather than having a broken shelf queen collecting dust for a month or two (so far CEN's ability to rush replacement parts seems pretty darned impressive to me).
With respect to discerning between pre-paid customer orders and stock/for inventory orders, how can CEN be expected to know if the 20 ordered were for customers? I've never seen an order screen or fax sheet that asks for this break-out.
I do feel bad for the folks that paid good money to be put on a waiting list, but you should be pointing 3 fingers:
yourself for paying up-front
the shop for requiring full payment to pre-order rather than a small deposit (say 10%)
and CEN for not meeting (or miscalculating) initial demand.