Thank you for your patronage Mr. King. Your orders shipped out this morning.
We hear you on the "Shield On Top" problem. These shields could indeed be used with the 'stackable' female headers if the user wishes. However, one of the reasons that they are not offered with long-lead 'stackable' headers is because those headers do no allow the boards they are used with to clear the components on a lot of the other shields properly and even on the MCU boards themselves. Including the genuine Arduino UNO, Duemilanove and other boards with the full size USB 'B' connector. Since the long-lead headers mount from the top, they are missing that extra 2.5mm of plastic that the regular male header has and just do not to fit very well in a lot of cases. We have noted this with all the shields we have seen that use these headers.
We have spoken to the folks over at OMS and they have promised to respond by adding another board to the system that will have a staggered header arrangement so that regular male headers can still be used on the bottom of the shield for better fit. This new board will share the same mini-breadboard foil pattern and will be ideal for building up mid-stack shields. We hope to see those in the next few weeks.
So, for those that wish to stack on top of the current shield, they could go ahead and use the long-lead female headers.
It should also be noted that the current shield corrects the pin spacing along the inner (female header) rows. That means a user could use standard 0.1" spacing perfboard to build piggyback boards to fit onto the shield via regular female headers in those rows. Not a stacking solution, but a fairly unique little bonus.
Thanks also for your input, we appreciate it very much.