"Order date/time will (within reason) now be the determining factor (within a batch)."
I have a feeling that "withing reason" means that people who order in the same day (00-24 hour period) will be shipped according to chips batch number and people who ordered different days will be shipped according to order day. So if 2 people from chips batch 1 and chips batch 4 order the same day will be shipped the same day, but someone from batch 1 ordering the fifth day will be shipped the fifth day. (as long as there are enough chips for everyone, if not then chips batch number is the first)
Why do you think so? Its very easy for burnin to see the ordernumbers in his shop, but it would be much work to find out in which batch a customer bought, when this batch was ordered and so on. I, in burnin's shoes wouldnt do the work, and i dont see why that should be done. Burnin doesnt have to favor early chip buyers. The only advantage he has is when he got money for his business. That would be an order.
In my understanding burnin wont care about batches, batch order dates and so on. I think he wrote this already in the thread. Its simply too much work without any advantage.
The only advantage an early buyer might have is, that avalon is sending the batches in order of ordering. So the chips might appear at burnin earlier.