The poll question posed makes no sense - i don't mean logically I mean literally no sense maybe OP can elaborate on what they are trying to say.
Butterfly Labs has started shipping - hashrates are as promised, power draw is much higher but they are delivering.
They never held your funds hostage. At any point in the process you had the option of getting a refund.
You could try suing them but I doubt it would get very far.
From what I gather you want to say something like 'The delays of Y months cost me $X in profit i would have made by mining bitcoin with their product. They promised me it would be delivered by such and such date and it wasn't.'
Their lawyer will argue
'If they didn't deliver on time why didn't you get a refund and invest in some other product like Avalon?'
at which point you will say something like
'well they promised it would be only 2 more weeks'
'Did they deliver in 2 more weeks?'
'no'
'They why didn't you get a refund and invest in some other product like Avalon?'
The fact that you didn't get a refund means that you implicitly agreed to the delays. No one forced you to wait and the fact that BFL didn't meet their timelines won't be an issue because at any point you had a way out.
point taken. what about the people who sent BTC a year ago? These are in horrible situation because now they would get only 1/10 of BTC back as a refund...