I'm not sure I understand whether this is criticism or praise; isn't it a good thing for a company that has announced an upcoming product line to communicate transparently and frequently about progress and timelines for things like preorders?

Electronics is a high-investment but low-margin product. You either need to have a ton of cash upfront to pay for components and wait weeks to months until products are built and especially shipped to customers, or you need extremely generous payment terms with vendors. The latter you can only get by continuous high-volume orders... which Framework is too small for.