Did any of these “pundits” notice all of the 32GB Surface RT tablets were already sold out on the first day of pre-order?
Why yes, they did. They also mentioned that Microsoft mentioned they had "limited supplies" which were sold out after a week of ore-orders of the unseen product. On the day of actual release, the again "limited supplies" of the Surface were sold out within 24 hours. That is nowhere close to seventeen minutes it took to sell out the available iPod Minis.
The Yahoo! News article on the sell out of the Surface had all of twenty comments on the subject. . . Most referencing the limited supply the purchasers ran into!
And recall, Microsoft apparently felt it necessary to offer a $100 spiff to attract buyers. Apple has never had to do that for a new product release.