In hindsight, I am glad it turned out the way it did. I was able to break in the DIs hearing how they were voiced (sans grilles) for two months. That gave me plenty of time to get them to work in my living room and become quite accustomed to their sound. Now that I finally have the grilles, I can tell how different they change the sound quite assuredly, whereas if I had received the grilles with the speakers, I would have frequently removed-added-removed the grilles attempting to see which sound I liked best. In the end, I like the sound with the grilles on, as it has smoothed out a problem frequency for me.
I like the idea of not having them ship until grilles are shipped with it. But wouldn't this also allow your speakers to move further back into Eric's queue? If he has hundreds to build, I certainly would want mine to be as close to the front of the queue as possible!
Karma was very responsive via email with me, and I reminded her I was waiting for grilles once a week. As others have stated here, being a customer who consistently reminds them you are waiting for your order pays off. It did for me.
The grille issue is a silly thing for Tekton Design to get negative feedback over. IMO, this appears to be an easy fix. I looked at these grilles when they arrived and thought "what is the big deal? Couldn't Tekton Design hire a high school kid to just make grilles on the weekends for the orders shipping out that week?" They are very uncomplicated creations.
Great speakers! :-)