The funny thing is that kickstarter's official policy is that they are not a pre-sale platform. But if they were serious about this, they wouldn't let campaigns offer the product being developed as a "reward" in exchange for money. It's like amazon saying that they aren't a book seller, but they will give you a $30 book as a "reward" for donating $30.
I'm not sure if I fully understand the title of this post, though. The author points out that Kickstarter funds are to be used only for production related costs and therefore should be considered debt (they must be repaid, unlike equity). But, in reality I don't think that there are any legal or even ethical stipulations placed on money raised from Kickstarter. The money is being donated, and unlike business debt can be used in whatever manner without having to be repaid. Wasting Kickstarter money may or may not affect someone's reputation for awhile, but it doesn't show up on a credit score.
For this reason, it's always seemed to me that crowdfunding is the best way to raise money for anything. If you can do a crowdfunding campaign, do it. Most certainly for hardware. Then get a line of credit if you can, and raise money from VCs as a last resort [1].
[1] Other than Bolt of course, because their blog is so awesome that I'm thinking about pitching them right now.