Hi, when I first saw this on Reddit, I commented that this is the only thing I'd leave my preference of 40% ortho for, because I love its style so much.
I'm a middle school teacher that probably shouldn't even be in this hobby seeing how expensive it is. I have been selling off everything until I am now down to one 40% ortho board with budget components. The first run being at around $120 would be the top of my small budget, but gave me hope for future runs. I am worried that anything approaching $180 will be more than I can afford. Would there be options such as a plateless/aluminum plate selection, or other ways of trimming the cost? I love this layout so much, especially now that there is a HHKB variant.
I fully understand why it's more expensive, I just wish there had been some way of being part of the first short run.
Probably my best bet is to see if anyone with a R1 board is thinking of replacing it with a R2 board, and seeing if I can buy their R1 edition off them? (I know it would not be HHKB layout, that's fine.)