You won't get a better deal than what Muncie provided - as the low price leader, they caught too many orders to meet customer expectations of delivery within a 4-6 month timeframe. They got 6 SX AWDs in February. 1 SX AWD so far in March - so hopefully you'll get your vehicle in another 3-4 months. Remember that folks with September orders are still waiting... and you're a couple of months behind them. Like you said, just wait it out... keep calm and carry on.
These dealerships are franchises, who are expected to manage their business and customer expectations accordingly. Any failures of a dealership to deliver on a promised timeframe is the fault of the dealership, since they know the allocation system that Kia uses. I think some dealerships (particularly smaller ones) figured that Kia might start filling orders from kdealer (and perhaps they did initially) but that didn't work with their allocation system (KFOS) which assigns allocations based on total KIA sales volume (other models included). There were just too many orders hitting kdealer to fill from two systems. Kia has to do it this way - else, a dealership like Muncie could underprice the vehicle to attract a ton of orders and other franchised dealerships would suffer as they wouldn't be getting Tellurides to sell. Right now, the Telluride sells itself.
In the end, if a smaller dealership wants to get more Telluride allocations, then they need to order and move more Kia vehicles - Sportages, Sorentos, Optimas, etc. Kia's allocation system is designed to benefit Kia - hence why it rewards those dealers with the largest sales volumes with more Tellurides. It is frustrating for the consumer and likely the smaller franchised dealerships as well.
Ultimately, Kia likely has too many franchised dealerships - but that strategy worked fine when they were selling Rios to credit challenged customers. Now, they want to sell a premium product to a more discerning customer, it means they need to work on their dealership network. Other manufacturers have taken dramatic steps to reduce the number of franchised dealerships in the past. It's telling that some dealerships aren't even getting Prestige vehicles to sell (the smallest dealerships) - some haven't even seen many Tellurides at all. It definitely shows that there is substantial heterogeneity.
