I'm sorry that some of the first people to place orders are the ones stuck in limbo - in careful reading of this thread, it seems there are good reasons (though it doesn't help when it's your car). I think the important point that people, especially new folks, should focus on is that there is NOTHING other than worry that is driving the 'it's a beta car, it's not the same quality' churn here. In fact, in looking at the facts, it appears that quality of one specific component (seats) is the reason your cars are held up.
It sounds like the cars held up were produced with seats that failed side air bag testing (internal or external testing, dunno). Because of port problems where a lot of stuff is currently held up, not just Tesla parts but enough to hit the news around here, the required replacement parts are held up and Tesla can't get at it. So they're offering to deliver the cars with older seats and giving options of a credit or retrofit. That seems to be a reasonable response.
As those of you who have been involved with manufacturing operations can likely imagine, components are kitted out, assigned to s/n (or VINs in this case) and to take seats from other cars in production would be just playing WhackAMole with the cars, moving the problem over to other cars coming down the line - and in doing so, you run the risk of introducing new problems you didn't have before.
Situation sucks for everyone. And no argument regarding the poor communication. Instead of piecing together 'what happened', there should have been an official letter out of the comms group letting people know. I think that's a lack at Tesla - most companies call in Comms to put together official communications on everything. 'Get us a messaging doc, what can we say, can't we say?' 'Please write this customer letter regarding [this]' and so on. I haven't seen Tesla Comms in that role & hopefully Ricardo Reyes will tackle that early on and expand the reach of the Comms group. No time like the present...
If I were waiting for my car right now, I'd be annoyed over the lack of communication. I would not be worried over potential quality issues.