Delay of shipping mining equipment on purpose?
There are reports online that Butterfly Labs and Avalon were both doing this as some customers have received dusty equipment with mining pool information set, however it is just as likely that the equipment was shipped out with preset pools and customers plugged them in and didn't reconfigure settings.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236348.0 is an interesting read, however it all appears to be circumstantial evidence at best.