Guh... I canceled. I got all excited when I saw this post today and instantly joined, but was shocked by the 8 month wait. The audio industry just moves too fast to wait that long.
MeringoYou worded your post intelligently; you're definitely right, too. My other hobby is mechanical keyboards and people over there are used to the lead times (as can be seen by some people using that as an argument over here) but a good/beautiful keyboard or keycap set will still be so in a month's time, in a year's time, in 20 year's time.
Not so with audio, really. The industry moves incredibly fast and new things keep coming - waiting 8 months for this is definitely a risk, though the product appears to be (and I have no doubt it is) fantastic.