First of all, telling me that complaining isn't going to get my order any faster does nothing to make me feel better. I've sold to thousands of customers,and I would never have dreamed of saying that to someone when delayed in giving them their order. It feels like you're putting the blame on the customer. Jeph told Random832 that he didn't appreciate some random stranger from the internet telling him (Jeph) how to do his job. That wasn't me, but Random832 eloquently summed up what I, and perhaps others had been thinking.
Second of all,I have no idea how many orders are still outstanding, but I have some clues. On 1/26 Penngraffe said that she would send e-mails to everyone whose shirts had not been shipped by 2/1. That makes me think that it was a reasonable enough number that sending the emails would be doable. I never received any such E-mail,and I suspect it never went out. Surely the number has been greatly reduced since then. On 3/23 Jeph said that the problem orders were a small part of the total number of orders that had been fulfilled. Also, on 3/23 Jeph said that all orders through December had been taken care of, but TheTank has had an outstanding order for 5 months,and Tari has had an outstanding order for 7 months. That means that some orders HAVE been falling through the cracks. So, we plaintive customers who have been asking for some sort of feedback might actually have a point.
I have no idea how many of us stragglers are out there, but I suspect it is less than 500. If is is more than 500, than Jeph has over $10,000 worth of unhappy customers out there. If Jeph spends an average of 3 minutes sending e-mails, each by each, to 500 stragglers, that would be 25 hours of work. Which seems like a lot, but consider, Tari has been waiting for 7 months and has NO IDEA if Jeph even knows s/he exists. Plus, I am sure Jeph, being smarter than me, could work up a more efficient way of doing a mass response that would take less time. In any case, the 3 minutes would save Jeph time in the long run, because then we would know we are in the pipeline, and could pipe down while legitimately lost souls can e-mail Jeph and have some hope of being heard. The volume of inquiries goes down, Jeph's anxiety level goes down, my blood pressure goes down, and everyone is happy. Jeph, for any order that has not yet gone to the printers, I would strongly advise that you give the customer the option of taking a refund & ordering through Topatoco. Remember, you are trying to work yourself out of the T-shirt business.