>See: Tesla Model S, Surface tablets made by MS themselves, Google's Nexus line of phones.
All bad things to compare to. In all of your examples, these lines were all established long after the companies entered the market. This is a device trying to create a new ecosystem from a company that hasn't produced a phone before for an ecosystem that basically doesn't exist yet.
Right now it should be seen as a prototype (and it is). But whereas Google, Tesla, and Microsoft have large numbers of engineers these projects rely quite a bit on community support. Imagine if Tesla launched the Roadster but couldn't service it themselves, instead relying on independent garages to figure out the best ways to work out servicing and bugfixes?
For these projects it's better to keep the specs modest (less thermal issues/faults), the price affordable (more developers can afford to purchase one), and the perception of support good (so people aren't on the fence because the manufacturer calls it quits or goes out of business a year later). It's especially important to keep the price low enough that the first models could be seen as hobbyist/secondary phones because making a phone ecosystem is really friggin hard.
Viral works when you're trying to sell a videogame, not when you're trying to create an ecosystem from basically scratch (or even just carve out a niche). No matter how Librem tries to market itself, it's a niche product with limited appeal especially regarding their price point. In this sense, too much attention from the wrong kind of consumer at this time will be their undoing.