I'd say the problem with Barcie was that it way underperformed everybody's expectations due to all the pre-launch hype (remember the "dancing in the aisles" stories, plus Allen's interview as documented in the Youtube clip). So when it did debut late, with low clocks and then the TLB bug, and the benchies showed it much lower performance than what we had been lead to believe, it was a huge disappointment.
However I wouldn't call it garbage, plus AMD did get the clocks up and the bug fixed after a few months. In retrospect, AMD should probably have delayed the launch even more and used the extra time to more thoroughly test it. But at the time AMD was used to making a profit, unlikely as that sounds
, so obviously they wanted it out the door and earning some return on their investment. And IMO they miscalculated the lasting impression such an underpowered and underperforming debut would have, at least for enthusiasts who are a really hard bunch of nerds to please
..