I still think it'll be interesting to see if m Acekard2 from Kickgaming has this same issue. It didn't come yesterday but my nice red aluminum slim case came.
I have a hunch It'll either come today or toomorow, or at the latest Tuesday (Martian Luther King Day=Bank Holiday), provided this early delivery trend continues.
I'll post my results. If I don't have any issues with AKAIO 1.5.1 or 1.5 or the official firmware (I've got at least 5 previous versions of the Official Firmware loaded on my external hard drive ready to go). Then I can say it's probably an issue with the batches from DX, etc. If I do then I'll contact KickGaming and go from there.
I still have faith that it's not a hardware issue, and my faith so far in other situations whether they be related to this or unrelated has almost never failed me.