You must've gotten ahold of 2-day-old donuts if they were hard.
A Krispy Kreme donut goes through 4 distinct stages:
(a) Fresh. This is evidenced by warm dough and flaky sugar coating. This lasts about an hour. These donuts can only be achieved at the shop.
(b) Almost Fresh. Dough is cool to the touch but the sugar still flakes. The donut will stay in this condition for about 12 hours. Examples are usually at the shop or at one of the better grocery stores.
(c) Not So Fresh. Dough is cool to the touch, sugar is in a state of "sweat" where its more of a liquid that's soaked into the dough. This is a "later-in-the-day donut", about 16-24 hours after manufacture, but still edible. These are your convenience store donuts.
(d) No Longer Fresh. A "next-day-or-so donut". Dough is cool to the touch, sugar has completely seeped into the dough. The donut is hard but can be revived by a short stint in the microwave, but you won't have the sugar coating. These are sold at convenience stores that don't care about customer satisfaction.
I hope this helps resolve the confusion over quality by explaining why some of us Kreme in our jeans when the "Hot" sign is in the window, and why some of us can't understand the addiction because we get ours in a box at the convenience store.
