Great hearing from you guys.
Might be a normal expectation, @pokey77 but as you know expectations ain't always met. There's something to be said for dealing with a company managed by a "sole-proprietor" and not a board of directors. The former tend to have "skin in the game" and take things personally (in a good way).
@jond - I've said it before in these forums. This whole Auralic thing is your fault! ;-) I actually still have the Mini and it works just fine. Used it when the G1 was down. Firmware updates seem to keep it sounding fresher than you might expect for its age.
The Mini has got to be one of the best values in audio. My ears, my gear but it seems to do maybe 80 or even 90% of what the G1 does. Don't get hung up on those %, just trying to make a point. And that performance for what price? As originally priced the Mini was maybe 1/5th the G1's cost.
I almost didn't keep the G1 (30 day return option on an open box unit from Audio Advisor) because the Mini sounded so close. What took me a while to appreciate is that while the Mini covers much the same frequency range; i.e. the two "sound" very similar tonally, the G1 presentation is more transparent; more "air & space"/stage depth; a little sharper in sonic images; the music is more "3D". So maybe more "refined" covers it. But I won't lie, it's not something that hits you over the head from the get go. It took me a while to appreciate what it was doing because initially I was so focused on comparing the tone which like I said seemed much like that from the Mini. Anyway, missed it when it was gone and glad it is back.
I'm not crying about the mechanical hard drive. Switched to solid state: SanDisk - Extreme Portable 2TB External USB-C NVMe. SSD Prices have come down a good bit. This one was on sale at Best Buy for just a little north of 50% the regular price. 5 year warranty.
Bottom line, don't be apologizing for your Mini! but if opportunity presents itself you might enjoy a G1 (or now, G1.1).