FWIW, I don't consider you "wolves" one bit or think you "got what you deserved." There was no reason not to be excited about the group buy when it started. The promises were made, and there was no reason not to believe it would be delivered upon. The deals weren't THAT great (certainly not great enough to fall under the "too good to be true" category), and it had the backing of a very reliable member who had organized many, many successful group buys in the past. It was even thrown out there early on that the Xterra community was doing a good thing for this business by throwing all of these orders at them, and everyone was led to believe that it was benefitting the shop, the customers and the Xterra community. I was really upset that I couldn't scrape the funds together to jump on the GB before it expired, because I really wanted these bumpers too. Slowly over the past several months, it has evolved from "come on everybody, let's help out this great business, help out the xterra community, and get a great product for a good price" into "cut us some slack, we were trying to do everyone a favor and now we're getting screwed here," and it's so not cool to have it flipped around on you like that.
This is a really ****ty shittuation all the way around. The biggest victims are obviously the consumers who paid their money and haven't gotten their product (you guys!), but the reality is that there are NO winners here. The shop is not making money. The consumers are not getting their product. The reputations of many people are ruined. The patience and sanity of many, many more is also completely gone.
As you mentioned, the threads on TNX are not visibile to the public anymore, so I've only been able to follow what is on XN. It looks like some people had some luck getting refunds lately, but I would imagine that stopped when the flood of requests for refunds came in and they (he) realized they (he) was going to lose a small fortune on this if he gave everyone their money back (remember, he's already purchased the metal, outsourced the welding and paid for powdercoating in many cases). Truth be told, I would bet that once the smoke settled, people would buy all of those bumpers up, especially if they knew it was "in-stock, ready to ship" and had been inspected for QC issues. People really do want the product, they just don't want the lead times, the QC issues and the crappy customer service.
Sadly, I'd say you really only have two options here: 1) continue to wait and try not to die from the stress of it in the meantime. This unfortunately means you won't have your bumpers before the trip in November. or 2) threaten legal action (and be prepared to follow through with it). This option would at least probably get you your money back quickly, although it might not be as "cut and dry" of a case as it seems if there was no official contract. Still, the implication is clear and the results are also painfully clear, so it should be a pretty quick (and cheap) thing to get done. It's not like he's going to fight back with a lawyer either, so you can literally file a lawsuit in small claims court and would likely see a refund the day after he gets served. Just my $.02. Anyway, good luck, and I feel for you guys! It's so hard to watch a bunch of good people go through this horrible experience.