I agree with you about the amount of characters in the game but couple that with the insane amount of attention to detail .I would think that he may have to cut both of them down to shorten time between updates.
If he does manage to release in July/August that would be maybe 4 months since last update
Yeah, I mean, just look at Day 12's planned events, for example; 9 for the day but 12 in total as the 3 are "or" events for different paths. We're likely to get the first 4 events, which is 6 events in total, for the the first part of Day 12, and then the next 5 events, 6 total again, for the 2nd half.
If they didn't have so many character threads and paths, they could do 6 separate events for one full day, which would be more than enough, in a 3-4 month update cycle instead of splitting a single day into 2 parts and doing twice as much. They might not want to compromise their vision for greater expediency, but they have to remember that whilst this is their baby, it's not all about them and not many people are going to wait around for them to finish.
It will be a huge struggle for them to finish this game the way things are currently going and they are, eventually, going to have to swallow their pride and make a change somewhere because given what they said about how long and hard they work on this game every day and the sacrifices they're making, the risk of a burnout seems huge and that's the last thing anybody wants, including them. Trimming the fat and streamlining the number of daily events will surely speed up production and take a lot of strain off them too.