Everyone agreed that it will never back ROI when its price/auction was announced. (erupter blades/ usb sticks)
This. Everybody knew that those blades were hugely overpriced and there was no return in buying them.
Let's be clear. They just sold some dozens of them. Mostly to newcomers. If they were priced reasonably, you would have seen single persons buying hundreds of them and building big set ups based on those units. That didn't happen, because the blades never made any sense from a business point of view except for ASIC miner and their shareholders. Those units were just a very unprofitable toy for the customer.
The blades, post auction (so at 50 btc) were very reasonably priced. The were literally the only thing you could buy that would ship, and the ROI wasn't terrible (3-4 months). They also sold hundreds of blades, not dozens of them.
The USB devices, were initially around 6 months ROI and were not looking as good with difficulty increases. That said, they were going for 2.5x their BTC price on ebay, so a lot of people bought them to resell.
Bitching about "the market rate" is ridiculous. ASICMiner had a set inventory, and they sold out, at a rate that maximized profits.
Reasonably priced? Nobody ever got back what they spent on them, and probably never will.
3-4 months ROI? How retarded has someone to be to believe that? How do you calculated that ROI timeframe? Considering constant difficulty with no increase whatsoever? That's impossible and one of the dumbest things you can ever consider, and you have the irrefutable proof in the fact that they will not ROI on that timeframe, in fact most of us thought from the beginning that they will mot ROI at all. Only time will tell, but I stand up correct until now.
The units sold out just because there where only a few hundred on stock. Excellent strategy for ASICMiner and their shareholders, they took the maximum profit possible milking:
A) those willing to mine at a loss
B) those willing to resell the units at an even higher price
C) those that know nothing of basic math
Congrats to friedcat, he did it very well considering he had a limited supply and there was a shortage of supply in the market, but saying that those prices are reasonable (meaning they will allow ROI for customers) is plainly and simply retarded.