The tricky part of removing the pay-per-block is it makes a Hot wallet/Cold storage become a necessity. Hot Wallets have their own vulnerability to thieves and cold storage adds more work and book keeping and accounting files. Just ask Eleuthria, its do'able but takes time to get it right.  

Are all chips fully functional on all of these miners??

I paid mine and filled the form

When can we expect the miners to come online?