This isn't THAT much different from when I pre-ordered the Note 4 through VZW. Only thing there was that it had an official launch date that it was supposed to be available in carrier stores, so they shipped to get them into people's hands the day before that or at least that very day.
No such hard deadline with this device, since it's only available online. To their credit, no one ever gave a hard date when these devices would ship. At the event, it was something like "late October," which, yes. Some shipped before the end of this month and were received.
When you all ordered from Google, you were given a window of dates to expect. When I questioned Huawei support, they told me early November.
I'm not really seeing how it's a cluster, other than some poor communication on Huawei's part, at this point.
Sure, there was a bit of a back up with some phones, but Google made good there imo with the $25 credit.
Does is suck waiting? You bet, but it could be a LOT worse so far.