Yupp, I agree. I was a HUGE fan of them 6 months ago - after they had already missed their dates considerably. I’d be looking for other alternatives now if I was interested in laser carving. It sounds from the CES show like they’re continuing to innovate, but the fact that they can’t get a unit out with basic functionality after 2 years is troubling.
Late, But not vaporware any more. I was fortunate to get a pre-release unit a couple months back.
It’s been working pretty good so far.
Couple things I done with it so far.
The UI still needs some work. But the hardware has been pretty good so far.
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It appears they will now sell replacement tubes. There was a lot of discourse over the initial announcement of the non-replaceable tubes; the community strongly opposed the update and Glowforge obviously listened. However, doesn’t mean things will change in the future. Another delay would be disastrous.
Out of giggles, I was curious about how GF was doing. They are now $4000.00 for the basic unit and not shipping until June of 2018 if lucky.
My $1900 60 Watt unit could have been delivered 4 days after ordering. Due to my schedule, it is a week later.
From the site;
When will my Glowforge ship?
We’re currently delivering orders placed during our pre-order campaign. Orders placed now will ship on or before June 2018.
For customers who already have a Glowforge on order, you can see your estimated ship date at Glowforge - the 3D laser printer. It’s updated every time we get production information, good or bad, so the dates will adjust continually as we get new information.
Those look really great, especially the MacBook Pro 
I was never sold on using a laser on wood, but those other projects you showed has won me over. Great job!
Lots of people actually have their Glowforge…
And overall the reviews have been very positive.
I received my Glowforge Pro on December 12th. All I can say is that it is everything they said it would be. I’ve been enjoying it immensely.
Does the internal camera work the way they advertised?
I’ve had my Pro since November 21st (I ordered it on the last day of the initial pre-order campaign). The camera gives a great view of the bed on your computer so you can line up your work right where you want it. Some users have said theirs is off by a little bit (.125-.25 I think I’ve heard) but mine hasn’t had any issues with that the few times I’ve tried. There are other things they are still updating constantly (I think there were two updates in the last week?). So far I’m very happy with it. Very easy to use. Making awesome things within 30 minutes of opening the box. Would I have liked it sooner? Of course. But I’m not torn up about it. Glowforge provided everyone materials, coupons, gift cards, etc. for the delay that I’m content with. They allowed anyone to cancel at anytime and kept communication about where they were. Not sure what makes anything they’ve done ‘illegal’. They were just terrible about estimating when they would have things developed. But I’ve worked in manufacturing my whole life and didn’t expect it to ship within a few months of the pre-order campaign for technology that didn’t exist prior to them.
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Like BrandonHeyman stated, improvements are being made. Auto height is not implemented yet, but will be sometime in the future. I started off with the demo projects recommended by Glowforge to understand how the laser works. After completing the first one I felt confident I knew what was going on a tackled my own project. I went to boxes.py and used one of there templates. I used default settings and made my own box. I then used the engrave function to lay a graphic on the top and finished that up with the tracing function. Inside the box I scribed a personal message to my daughter. The Glowforge auto traced my handwriting and scored it perfectly. It came out exactly as I imagined it in my head.
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Or maybe I don’t really view these forums as often? How does attendance relate to machine performance? Or even equates to how many units are in the field?
But yeah. The machine works fine. I’ve been working on other things on other machines.
I’ve had a great experience with the Glowforge Plus, just always make sure to keep an eye on it. Like with many other laser cutters, they can end in a disaster if not properly ran or vented.