Well, they worked pretty darn good at the convention, let me tell you. It helped BM buy a good 2 months of time as people were telling each other on the PIPS Forum "Bryan said at the convention our bank in Cambodia will come online in about 60 days". The dangled carrot-like possibility of VAT being the solution to the WD woes helped as well ("the billions of $'s are there, we just can't get them to you because of the evil banks").
Thelema, in your assessment you have to consider the situation in 2004 with the drastically different one in '05. PIPS looked so convincing in 2004. The fact is 2% COMPOUNDING does not even work for one person over the long run, let alone 80,000 accounts.
Desp ite BM's assurances/lies about the longevity of the program, imho, PIPS was never planned to be a long term program. He would find someone to blame, close it and then come up with a new program and be yet again seen as a saviour and genius.