Actually if they knew about these issues, why announce the phone in the first place if they're not able to provide a quality product to begin with. Also, there are a lot of people that have been holding out for this phone and now we find out that we can't get the 32gb or customization, Motorola is going to lose a lot of potential customers.
Folks, until you have experience a supply chain from the manufacturer side of things, you simply will find it difficult to understand what they are undertaking and how complex it is. HTC wanted to do this and failed. They never were able to launch the idea. Moto is going to launch sans engraving, which I think is still a hell of an accomplishment. Rolling or staged launches are not unusual when corporations are trying to perfect a system as complex as Moto has taken on here.
Once the get AT&T orders going smoothly, I would expect them to roll out to other carriers. I don't think you will see a release date, because all they have are targets that will move as they learn.
Is it rocky and imperfect? Yes, but not unexpected.
Should we give them credit and a little leeway for actually trying something new and risky? Absolutely, this is new ground. Innovation is rarely neat and tidy.
Do they risk losing interest as time moves on? Probably, but they would lose more by launching all out and being unable to fill orders for weeks, or from crappy quality.