Just a wild guess, but there's a chance that many on the wait list are not impulse buyers with $1399 laying around that will go up in smoke on Black Friday if an AX8 transaction isn't made by then. And those that do blow their wad elsewhere will allow more committed players to get an AX8 earlier. I'm content to wait. Better than the the false economy of having the units rushed out the door before they are perfected and then being buried in complaints, returns, and the doom and gloom of "never time to do it right, always time to do it over". "When we get there" works for me.
Then again: Its easy for me to be patient: I've lived this long without an AX8 and survived, and never gave any thought to what I imagine I could be missing out on now that might exist in the future. Lucky me: I've got a couple great sounding amps and just the right pickups in the Strat in the here and now.