FireBALL, mine didn't seem badly soldered and it worked properly, but it was a bit grungy. Compared to the machine-assembled Arduino, it's a big difference. Hand-assembled parts will always look a bit less clean and polished.
The board design itself was also different-- the traces were about 1/3 the width, and the text was 1/2 the height of any other PCBs I've seen on Shield-sized work, or cellphones for that matter. I wonder if there's any connectivity problems?
Was yours actually not working, or just not able to run the demo sketch? Try the clock sketch andyp published; that showed me the device was working okay. I think the library needs to go on a diet.