Ultimately, this game is his intellectual property. That some here decide to ignore this do not change this fact. Also, the alleged breach of the Patreon regulations are ultimately no real justification.Oh, I totally agree on both points.
L&P, who is clearly and obviously and not even carefully, breaking Patreon rules, is wasting time and energy getting bent out of shape that an image was shared on pirate sites. He's as much a pirate as any of us here and the complete lack of self-awareness is kind of shocking.
I agree that the delay is very likely due to the update system: he posted he needed someone experienced with Renpy and Python, when called out on it he said it was for Decisions of Life implementation. Well that's ridiculous, obviously you don' need Python or anything even approaching advanced Renpy to implement DOL or AWAM - it's a pretty basic set of "if this then that" boolean tests with some points checks thrown in.
In any case, L&P could make it a lot harder for people not patreons to get timely access to his game. An in game update system is certainly one path in this direction. Sure, Python itself is not really good at keeping source code secret. That's why I suspect even an in game update system will ultimately be challanged, but all this take time and someone has to do it.
It will be interesting in any case.