The other forums are full of spam?  Man, I just got done reading a math discussion that was about 2 billion pay grades over me.  I've read a ton of insightful social commentary.  I have read threads that boiled down to "Currency for dummies" and we're excellent at explaining complex topics to newbies like me.  And sure, I've read some disgruntlement about ASIC manufacturers.  But what I haven't found is anything I'd call "spam"

In my opinion, no.

Like you I'm new to this and I've been looking into ASIC.  I've come across the big three and all three of them are not simply missing ship schedules but doing so in particularly shady ways.  Rather than clear, concise information about where the product is and where people's money is you get these weird blog entries and thread responses that oft-times sound more like zen koans than an actual business answer.  So I don't trust the businesses themselves simply because they aren't acting like businesses.  Now... who else might actually provide any "proof"?  I can't think of anyone.

Does that mean I'm out of the ASIC game?  No.  I might yet even pre-order and if I do it'll likely be BFL.  But my assumption is that anything I pre-order with them is simply throwing money away so it'll be some small amount I can afford to lose.  Honestly, if I was going to drop non-trivial money I'd want to fly out and visit BFL in person at this point.  I can't think of anything else they might do other than actually ship some product that would count as proof.

Sorry, but the "fear", "uncertainty", and "doubt" in this case is all very well placed and it wasn't put there by me.  Should FUD be enough reason to not move forward?  Not necessarily but it sure as heck ought to be a reason to move forward cautiously.  Look at it this way, you were never going to get wealthy using ASIC miners anyway despite the garbage spewed by "profitability calculators" such as this one:  http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/