It works like this:
- Nikon communicates to sales reps at a high level
- Reps communicate to retailers
- Retailers communicate to you
- Nobody wants to overcommit and not deliver, so everyone is conservative about what they say
- Nobody wants to put best guesses or expectations in writing and have them turn into a post on Nikon Rumors or other sites
- Nikon NPS communicates to NPS members
- Some of those communications are posted on social media - usually for a limited audience
If you are unhappy with the communications you are getting, your retailer is the right place to look. They have the best information possible, but there is information they don't have. Everyone in the chain understands that they should not make commitments to customers without firm knowledge - meaning a notification from Nikon or their reps. Having been in sales and managed both sales and service staff, it's common for them to not have all the information or to misinterpret information they do receive with their own assumptions. They may also use words that are misinterpreted by an optimistic customer. We've seen lots of quotes on social media that are obviously incorrect or only true for a very limited scope.
Communications cover a lot more than just the Z9. There are a number of new lenses released in the past 45 days, as well as new announcements. The communication strategy for Nikon, Nikon retailers, and independent retailers include the Z9, but that's not their only product. It's a relatively small part of unit sales even with something as successful as the Z9.
Typically I have had no problem developing a relationship with my retailer that gives me a good idea of where I was on their pre-order list. For someone the size of B&H, that's not likely to happen. NPS orders may not be known to the retailer, so it's hard for them to know exactly when an order will be fulfilled, and that has implications on where everyone is on a wait list. My retailer knows I'm an NPS member though my relationship, and I let them know when I place an NPS order, but that's not required.
What you do know right now is the NPS customer orders are almost all filled, so almost all current and future production will be cameras targeted to non-NPS members.
At some point you have all the information you're going to get from any reliable source. If you ordered early from most retailers, you'll probably have a camera pretty soon. B&H is going to be different just based on their size and scale, and they always have huge pre-orders that take a long time to fulfill.