Sounded like a great idea, dinnit? Put up a website where your customers could upgrade to the brand-spanking-new iPhone 3G kit, right? Digg effect, meet iPwnage (no, not the hack, the tidal-wave of traffic Apple’s little gadget brings with it). It’ll Steve your website right quick — especially when you offer to hand deliver them on launch day!

Says O2:

“We had invested heavily to add a huge amount of additional capacity, 250 times its normal rate, and back-up systems. We tested this carefully in advance. The massive simultaneous crush exceeded even our worst case assumptions. Demand was at 13,000 orders per second. Frankly, we have to admit we just weren’t prepared for this unprecedented level of demand. No Web site is.”

Yeah. Just be happy you don’t host a Stevenote stream. Traffic aside, though, 13,000 orders per second is staggering, and O2 admits Apple can’t meet that demand during a 22 country simultaneous launch. In fact, supplies look tight for the next few week, and nary an iPhone White in sight!

Our sympathies for our United Kingdom friends. If any of you mange to nab an iPhone 3G, please let us know!

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Multiple web sources are now reporting that multiple Apple stores are now out of stock on the iPhone, both 8GB and 16GB models. We touched on the New York shortage briefly last weekend, but this shortage seems far more widespread, with little or no news on when stocks will be back at normal levels.

Though the Apple online store lists availability at 5-7 days (long enough for a container ship to hit US shores?), AT&T retail still appears to have stock aplenty on hand.

Have you had any trouble getting a Jobs phone lately? Or do you see boxes piled high round your parts? Is this a sign of poor supply chain management (atypical of Apple), or is 3G on its way? What do you think?