I think your points 1 and 2 are exactly spot on. And, assuming that both Rebble's and Eric's are being relatively forthright, that Eric is the one that is actually trying to come to an agreement that accomplishes that. Whereas Rebble is taking the position of "only we can be trusted".
And with all the people replying to the original Rebble post with "I'm canceling my preorder", I'm pretty worried that Rebble has created a self-fulfilling prophecy situation. :(
I'm torn here. I love that Rebble folks have kept things alive. I also love that Eric underwent the effort to make new hardware.
I'm also a bit sad that this is the first we're hearing of this tension, because it likely would've changed my decision to purchase a new Core 2 Duo watch, and I would've preferred this sort of falling out happen before a lot of devices have been purchased.
As someone who owns both a couple Vorons and a couple of Bambu's printers, I do think for a lot of people the difference between the two can be "3d printers are my hobby" vs "3d printers are a tool". It's not that Vorons can't be reliable, in fact a lot of the reason why say the X1C is so reliable is because its design essentially started life as a Voron. But because you have to assemble them, they just aren't as "plug and play".
And with all the people replying to the original Rebble post with "I'm canceling my preorder", I'm pretty worried that Rebble has created a self-fulfilling prophecy situation. :(