Snook2 - Mick is a one man show. He does not have a US distributor or dealer. He does however have technicians in certain areas of the US who are familiar with the units and can perform repairs when need be. Mick likes to fix the preamps himself when the cost to repair in the US is greater than the cost of shipping round trip to Australia.
A friend of mine sent his preamp back to Mick for an upgrade - It took a total of 10 days for the repair and shipping both ways. That is pretty good service. Not many big name manufacturers with dealers and distributors can match that.
I really have to hand it to Mick for consistently providing the highest level of customer service and support!
Snook - you bring up a good point about the way Mick runs his business - it could be run in a more mainstream, bureaucratic fashon (with dealers/distributors, etc) but if he did, you could quite possibly be looking at a price tag of $5,000 for a Syrah and $10,000 for a Cortese. It costs money to support dealers and consumers pay that cost.
The way I see it, Mick provides fantastic service and has priced his equipment as low as possible - creating a situation where YOU as the consumer can really win big!