Weird. I thought it was pretty friendly worded, and given the fact that they seem to stonewall and their blogs are 'mostly dead' a posting here, especially a carefully worded one is a good way to get back in touch.
If you have a startup, talk with your customers. Build a community. You want your customers to be happy with your product and tell it to all of their friends. I told several people that I was getting a wakemate, and showed them how cool it was. In the months since, they ask about it, but all I can tell them is about my disappointment from yet more delays.
the [dead] link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358309
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1358462
Could have been an interesting discussion.
How about, we just assume it's not going to work out for them, and be pleasantly surprised if it does?
If wakemate does not communicate openly, even if there is a big problem they may do a lot of damage to future YC start-ups that plan on HN as their first place to gain traction.
It may be that the Wakemate devs have perfectly fair and reasonable grounds for not delivering yet; being open and honest with their customers about where they are and what they're dealing with could well win back some of their lost credibility.
It's not "emotional" for a customer to reach out to the company and ask for some straight dealing.