selling out is a marketing piece. If they wanted to raise money for development of AT Proto they could raise more by taking backorders and shipping when available. Selling a limited edition in order to sell out is because it's cheaper to get people to write about you than it is to buy ad placement.
It can be both, and there's nothing wrong with that. Could they have gathered a few bucks more if they had taken orders as long as they come in? Sure. But at some point they'd inevitably go "we could make even more with larger batches" only to end up with considerably loss on that one last batch.
Taking the publicity instead of squeezing the lemon past the easy part is a perfectly rational decision.
