They're building a game with a scope larger than any other space sim ever made, pushing current game engine tech past its limits.
Sh*ts gonna break and it's going to get delayed.
I don't really care about the delays, as long as they keep expanding the modules and improving the experience. It's obvious they're working very hard on this project and they're not willing to go second-rate anything.
I really don't think people who don't have some fundamental insight into what it takes to develop a game, let alone a game like this, understand the monumental technical and content creation hurdles this project is undertaking. With each release, especially past 2.0, they're proving they can accomplish it.
$100 million allows you to build something with more wide-spread appeal and the core mechanics get 'easier' to appeal/appease that bigger audience.
I think there is some of that going on right now.
Yes - you can certainly see some of it creeping in. A certain contingency wants to completely nerf ship mav thruster levels. They want to see "get on his 6" planes-in-space fights like their favorite movie.
I think they listened and went too far in 2.0. The lack of thruster power and the very slow rampdown is making it very hard to outmaneuver fire by any method other than running away at high speed.
The good news is Calix Reneau said he's tightening that up in the next flight balance pass in January, so it doesn't look like they're going to go any further down that path, but perhaps somewhere between 1.3 and 2.0.