I, too, was shocked by the price. And I do recall those claims about it not being premium priced / as cheap as possible. Granted those claims were way before the decision to manufacture and assemble PCBs in the US. That alone may easily have added $100 to the price (but I’m just throwing that number out of my ass).
After letting it all sink in for a while, I don’t think it’s that ridiculously priced anymore. US production, injection molded case (most ODEs come with a crappy 3D printed mount, at best), awesome product box / art. Even has some cool bonus features like a USB port that may potentially be used for Saturn development and debugging in the future.
I do understand everyone’s dissatisfaction and frustration though, he didn’t deliver on the price-point that was “promised” (everyone’s expectations were for a lower priced product).
That said, I’m 95% sure I’m getting one. I’m 8XX in queue though, so I won’t make the first batch, perhaps some early reviews could sway me otherwise. For me the biggest selling-point is the open source menu system. It really bugs me when these are kept closed source, and one is left at the mercy of the maker.