Yeah, many of the Asia/HK based stores seem to use the term 'in-stock' for pre-order items to imply that the pre-order hasn't been sold-out yet, e.g. RobotKingdom has the same implication.
I have heard some negative experiences about people ordering directly from iGear so I have steered away from doing that. I haven't had problems with RobotKingdom thus far, so will probably order through a secondary seller like them...
Would be interested in anyone's experiences with iGear direct.