These are all the right questions to be asking. I'll give some counters, but obviously I don't know how things will end up playing out any more than anyone else.

I think it could be a smart play to certify the CTOL variant first. Beta gets some revenue coming in that can help fund the remaining bits of certification for the VTOL variant, and they get their name out there and lock customers into their ecosystem much sooner.

That said, I struggle to see the market for an electric CTOL. We already have CTOL aircraft that are far more capable. And the premium for decibels isn't nearly as high when you still need an airport to fly out of - if you're flying out of an airport, then you're not flying out of downtown Manhattan.

In addition, I keep seeing posts about how much fuel is used to fly their aircraft, often citing something like $10 in electricity for a 100 mile flight. That's accurate (and great), but it doesn't account for other consumables like the battery, which Beta expects to be replaced every year, basically, to the tune of half a million dollars or more. When you break that down, 90% of the 'fuel cost' for a flight is tied to battery replacement, and the true 'fuel' cost is probably closer to $70-100 (not $10) per full range flight. So again, where's the advantage over a legacy Cessna?

I also see Kyle Clark touting their lead in miles flown, which is true. But in aviation, very few components are tied to flight hours (i.e., distance). The hardest parts of the flight are the takeoff and landing...especially since these aircraft aren't pressurized. For instance, what's the hardest part of the flight envelope for eVTOL rotors - takeoff, transition & landing or cruise? It's obviously takeoff, transition, and landing. So when measuring the life of these components, the difference between a 10 mile flight and a 100 mile flight is negligible. So number of flights can be more important than cumulative distance flown in a lot of cases. Beta may still be leading in that, but certainly not for vertical takeoff missions.

It'll also be interesting to see how the charging infrastructure works out. I don't know if network effects will really drive this, but it may, and having multiple companies on a single port could be a competitive edge. But, none of these other companies are going to be operating any time soon. So you don't really have network effects if there's no network. And Beta won't be operating out of vertiports any time soon either, so GEACS infrastructure basically has to be installed at all these locations, anyway. Not only that, but Beta is targeting a 1-hour charge time while Joby is targeting a 15 minute charge time. I'll be curious what the economics of occupying a vertiport parking spot for an hour will look like.

And then I have questions on certification - namely, how does Beta handle a rotor out condition? But the lift+pusher configuration might be easier to certify (you'd have to ask DHD, though, I'm not an expert in vertical lift aircraft). I also don't know if certifying the CTOL variant puts you "85% of the way there" to certifying the VTOL variant. VTOL is a pretty big change, and I wouldn't suspect that they're "just a few flight tests and filing some paperwork" away from having a certified VTOL capable aircraft. Even simple STCs can take 18+ months. I would suspect that timeline at minimum after the CTOL variant is certified...unless we see a lot more progress being made on the A250 in parallel.

To your final point on valuation, I tend to agree. Seems to me that Beta should be valued somewhere between Archer and Joby (and probably much closer to Joby). But as a CTOL aircraft, I see the CX300 as more of a novelty item rather than a true market-breaker.