Lasher, I'm an even longer time member and I do understand your points.
Gonk, you put up a good defense. I'm involved in electronic products development/manufacturing and do understand that complex products take a long time to develop and also it's always the soft/firmware that causes deadlines to be missed.
However, Outlaw's delay on this product is inexcusably excessive. I say that because even though the delay is at SN, the problems are apparently so great that SOMEONE in SN could have predicted a long delay months ago and Outlaw should have been told that so they could tell us to not expect the product in 2009. Also, if S/N was not up front with them, Outlaw should have guessed that there was a serious problem and Outlaw should have told us to forget 2009...BUT, Outlaw did not do that and I fault them for it.