My 2c: if a full month after pre-order starts, and you're still struggling to fulfill orders that were placed in the first 8 minutes, you screwed up pretty badly. End of story.
I honestly don't know how anyone can argue against that. And even if you somehow can, I honestly don't understand how anyone can forgive Apple for being almost completely silent through this.
Customers are deeply, deeply unhappy and downright angry over this disaster. Apple's brand has suffered. At least for me, I no longer look at Apple and think to myself, "boy, those guys sure are competent".
Instead, I think to myself, "holy @#4, they have well over $100 billion in cash in the bank, and they couldn't (or wouldn't) prepare more than 8 minutes worth of preorders"?
In what world is that not considered a business disaster?