> Why would someone get the phone at $695 when it could go down more?

Because everybody that paid more is being refunded. See the notes on each of the events. It won't go down anymore, but even if that happened, you'd not be screwed for supporting the campaign earlier.

> the scale of the goal and the precedent it could set for people doing very capital-intensive projects with crowdfunding was what motivated me to back it.

I'd also support it just on that basis alone, but I'm also looking forward to have a well supported and familiar Linux distribution on a phone.