Quoted from jeffspinballpalace:

Appears some people have short memories and others have more money than brains for preordering TBL. There will always be some who like to preorder, but 94 on Pinside is as if there is not a concern in the world about this pin. Agree that licensing issues are resolved but does anybody have proof the financial structure is fixed so money can be spent wisely? Do preorders believe that producing these will be a slam dunk?
Reliability of TBL is the last unanswered elephant still in the room. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned as a bigger concern up til now. The game at TPF lasted what, 4 or 5 hours before being pulled because it was broken beyond repair (my words)? Granted it was a prototype, and probably one in the same from NYC. The US East coast launch was at Modern Pinball with two TBL's. One machine was down half the night and the other was working sporadically.
DP are you listening? This pin had better be a lot more reliable or you're entering a world of pain. It would be a shame too because that would be entirely of your own doing. Think of a preorder mob that has just found out their pinball project went south - yikes. I am anxious for a public reveal too so TBL can see some action and we can see it holding up. Of course, I can't wait to see the final art and decent code too. Waiting to buy TBL until they are being shipped and played and issues are resolved. May have to buy a rug off eBay until then.

Quoted from sd_tom:

It really all depends on how quickly they can start getting games out. The 1 a week situation it seems like we are in now is going to #1 take forever and #2 encourage more people to do air freight which further slows getting to a full container.
They really need to hit 10 a week, so a full 40 game container once a month before it will feel like anything but torture to wait for container.
I plan on container shipping, because the price is so steep.. it erases the cost advantage of my preorder. That's a psychological wall I can't rationalize just yet.. but we'll see how long it takes to get to #17.