Conspiracy theory time.
A big bunch of smart and evil people saw a huge potential of Librem 5 breaking the Android/iOS duopoly and wanted to stop it. They preordered Librem 5 with intention to cancel their preorders and destroy the company. Purism noticed way too many calls for refund and understood that they wouldn’t survive if they fulfilled them all. The rest of the story is in this topic above.
My comment: Purism did everything right. I hope they will be able to fulfill all refunds when possible though.