Fair enough, that's the kickstarter/ early access risk. I totally understand being hesitant.
Doesn't bother me, I kind of enjoy the excitement but the let down can be a bummer. For example I bought into Richard Giariott(spelling?) Shroud of the Avatar. Game has turned out to be something other than I expected. I'm disappointed but not heart broken.
Yeah there are 2 ways to do early access it seems:
1: Promise the world without having got far enough through planning stage to even see if its technically possible to do what you want and promise, take peoples money, do your best but in the end you end up breaking original promises and pissing off alot of backers. This seems to be the way SC is starting to swing, not that it will end that way but breaking original backers promises is where it starts to go bad alot of the time. Note that its still possible to release a great game this way, just not the best PR for your game when you start breaking promises to original backers.
2: Wait until game passes alpha and is about to go beta, most in game systems have been designed and are in place in initial stages. Then have a kickstarter and take peoples money. Then let the backers have input and fine tune the game during beta. This generally results in much less dishonesty on the devs part as its alot easier to make and keep promises when the game is already past alpha stage of development, you know at this stage what can and cant be done.
Unfortunately alot of devs go with option 1.
This is why early access is always a gamble. And IMO why its always a good idea to wait and never do EA games especially from new devs. If you back it early there is always a chance the dev's will lie/break promises, and you may get mad and stop playing because of this without even waiting for the end product. Afterall no one likes being lied to no matter how the devs try to justify it. Even though in the end 3-5 years later they end up releasing a good game, just maybe not the one originally described/sold at the beginning of EA.