What about RMA's who are waiting on a replacement Pandora? Would they be slotted into an upgraded Pandora as well? That would be an awesome consolation prize to say the least. Could we e-mail ED or Craig and express our wishes to have our replacement fulfilled with an upgraded unit, and thus let other RMA replacements who don't care about an upgrade get fulfilled before us?
this is increadibly wishfull thinking, if you have had a unit which needs repairing I doubt very much with will provide you with an upgraded model; If they did it would be too much of an incentive for people to be "RMA"ing there devices for a free upgrade and it would also be a bitch slap to those who have working pandoras.
Well if CC flops and productions falls solely on Germany, and OP decides to go for the updated hardware, I don't see how you can avoid the situation of replacement units for RMA's getting an unintentional upgrade. OP will either stick with the old hardware or go for the new, and if they opt for the new hardware there won't be Pandoras with the old hardware spec in a few months time. Replacement RMAs would have to be fulfilled with new hardware at that point, whether it is fair or not. My real question I guess is whether or not those waiting on a replacement unit (myself) could opt to wait for the new hardware standard if OP decides to go for it.
Unfortunately I don't see how OP can go for the upgraded hardware without hurting some feelings, yet I feel it is the right move considering how late this project is getting into customers hands. There was a time when ED and Craig went out of their way to ease fears that there'd be no functional hardware difference between Batch 1 and 2, but here we are... Ultimately, for the health of the project, updated hardware is the better option. If for some reason I had to just settle for the current hardware I wouldn't be upset. The Pandora the way it is right now is a dream come true. That being said, I'd chomp at the bit for a chance to get an even more powerful version, one that might have a snowball's chance in hell of smooth Saturn emulation. I know its been thrown around already but maybe a discount for Pandora owners of the original spec are in order.