Dan - I'd like to hear your take on it.
Ok, but bear in mind this comes from someone that only in the last year has gotten breeder quality birds.
As I said on BYC, I compare it to my first experience with BCM. Marans are so popular, and the gene pools have gotten so diluted by hatcheries and greedy "breeders", that bad birds are not easily picked out by an amateur. I can look at an orange EE and a Black AM and see the obvious difference in those birds. Right now, someone wanting to buy Ameraucanas could put Ameraucanas into a search engine, and most of the returns would either be relatively well bred AMs, or EEs that were misrepresented. Obvious difference between those two birds.
When I put black copper marans into a search engine, I saw dark eggs and black birds with copper necks, so I found a "breeder" two hours from me that had them for sale. I actually drove to get them to avoid losing them in shipping. I didn't know anything about yellow skin, Penedesenca combs, side sprigs, white feathers, straw hackles, or any of the other egregious faults that initial flock had. The breeder had dark eggs and black chickens.
I fear that is what will happen with the AMs. Most people want AMs for blue eggs, and those people buying from hatcheries, then further diluting that bloodline by not breeding them correctly, are going to do the same thing to the AMs that has been done to the BCM.
I understand that hatcheries could pick up some birds any time they wanted to, then breed and sell those birds. It just surprised me who was promoting it...