The impression I'm getting is that the rush of Model S owners has them overwhelmed.
There are nearly more Model S depositers than Tesla owners/depositers, the car does not cost as much and therefore is a different type of client and they use a lot of Tesla's phone and internet time asking questions that are long from being worked out (as we have seen here). The tough part is since the company is small, people think that the workers are is more accessible than at a large faceless one. The problem is, with a small staff they are all working 3 jobs each.
In the stores imagine Model S depositors coming in, chatting up the sales people, asking a lot of questions that anyone would with only a picture in front of them -since there is only the one working prototype. Of course it's great to make the Model S sale if they had not already done so on the internet (wonder how many Model S sales actually happen in the showrooms? Anyone here do that?) And then before they leave, they want a Roadster ride. It's got be tough to sell a $50K car when your only car to show is a $100K car.
I think with only $5K down it's not a lot of value for a tiny company to spend time on the 1000 questions from a 1000 depositors. The Roadster owners got little feedback and waited a long time and got a great product. I agree with letting them focus on that again this time.