Joseph,
  I thought I'd weigh in on your assessment of some of these kits. As someone who has looked into these just enough to know that none of them are for me, I will take a bit of a critical stance. (Sorry to all you MakerBot owners/operators - it's amazing, really, but not for me. Yet!)

If you want tinkering with your printer to be as much of the experience as actually printing with it, this is the path to go. *everything* is configurable - so much so that it suffers from the classic "too many choices" syndrome. However, it's probably the most capable-for-the-price but it comes with a larger sweat-equity price.

This is the place to start if support and community is what you are looking for. While other printers (like the RepRap lines) have phenomenal communities, you can find people here across the spectrum of experience and patience. If you follow the recipe, you're likely to get what's advertised - a reasonable printer with reasonable maintenance requirements that can make reasonable prints. If you want more, it takes effort - sometimes bordering on the heroic.

This is the printer I was closest to getting. I think I can see where you are coming from with your assessment, but I think it's skewed because the machine has not been on the market long, and almost all of them are in the hands of major enthusiasts. It's a superior design, I think, than the current Makerbots (moving the head and not the platform just makes sense to me) but it doesn't have the community around it that MB does. Still, my gold star goes here.

It does look a lot like a "MakerBot, only different" but, then again, just about every DIY project based on laser cut plywood seems to fall into this category. This is my least-researched kit, so I'll leave it at this: they used to have some attractive-looking hot-ends, but I haven't noticed them innovating much. They always seem to be 1 step behind, but usually a bit cheaper. (My impressions. Those who follow them closer may have more info to share)

It's cute. It has a long way to go, and I'm seriously skeptical of their ability to deliver the goods at the prices they have advertised now. While they have a good chunk of change to start with, I think that without a *lot* of caution, they will run out of $$ long before they've delivered most of the kits. However, if that doesn't happen (and I hope it doesn't!) then I think they will be competitors for sure - if they can get their print quality up!

With the backing they now have from 3D Systems, I expect these will boom if they embrace the hobbiest/enthusiast community. These are probably the guys anyone selling kits should be scared of. However, at the current time, they seem to be more talk than walk, as you point out above. If 3D Systems plays this right, this bot can even be a loss-leader for them in some markets, getting people into the next-step-up machines they are/will be offering.

I was also impressed - plus the printer is *adorable* - I can see my non-tech friends using it. I haven't looked further, though.

Just my thoughts,
~w