Umm, that is circular logic. The machine was made and shipped by apple from the same factory whether directly to me or to amazon first.
None of what you have outlined so far is circular.
There is only one source for it. Apparently Apple would rather ship to Amazon rather than customers directly.
No. Amazon is selling machines to them. Guess what? Customers who ordered machines weeks if not months ago... yep... Apple is delivering machines to them too.
There is little to no difference between the two groups.
If Apple's contract plant can make 6,000 Mac Pros a month and there at least 6,006 orders from retailers and customers per month then there will be no units to stock Apple's inventory to sell off the shelf.
Right now Amazon entry Mac Pro is showing
" .. Only 8 left in stock (more on the way). ... "
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Mac-Pro-ME253LL-Desktop/dp/B00747YRWO
If 8 folks show up buy before Apple ships replacements, then Amazon will be in the same state that the Apple store is (i.e., none available for immediate shipment).
It isn't like Apple is passing up on machines that nobody wants or is incrementally reducing capacity on the production line lower so there are less available. The factory capacity was not set so high to produce a years worth of Mac Pros in 3 months, but it is starting to match the level of demand. The wait times are shorter and there are standard configuration stock that doesn't disappear in days (or hours ). For the majority of the 2014 the capacity will probably be more than sufficient. Relatively soon the retailers will start ordering less because fewer folks are buying Mac Pros as quickly (a substantive number of folks who need one, have one. ). At that point supply will catch up to demand and "ships in 24 hours" will show up on Apple's web site and can walk out of a physical Apple store with one. Right now Apple store stocking standard configs means kicking some other customers/partners in the shin in a "rob Peter to pay Paul" exercise.