The "rich steal" arguement while valid in a vacuum doesnt't apply here, since DPC is literally holding on to a lottery ticket with every delay. He's not cashing in $XXmillionen for what 50-60k patreon money ? Yea, I'm gonna say no to that one...
Just imagine Steam pulling Adult games again... he would lose tens of millions over peanuts, and he's still not that stupid.
I agree on the perfectionist part, it's very obvious that he is aware that BaD is the one thing in his lifetime where he reached the absolute top and he wants to make it better and better and more and more groundbreaking than anything that's out there. He wants to be "that guy" again and again, to be the first, to set the bar and leave something behind that nobody will ever forget.
It's funny, you know how many people pop up here and say "Oh but this and that game is so much better than BaD" and so on...Artemis, one of the games often mentioned...dude made 70k on steam, and that's before the cut steam takes. It's ridiculous just how far ahead DPC is and im so very sure, that that's the stuff that gets him hard and he craves more of it.
I don't think he's bored in particular, I think he wants to be showered with "Oh wow, we never thought we would see that in an adult game" or "Wow, that's a first", and nothing else matters to him. Dude is living on planet DPC and he makes his own rules.
He is also aware, and I think that's what most people here don't realise, that while every other developer is at least to a degree depended on F95 and Patreon, he won the freedom, thanks to steam, to no longer give a fuck about either one.
I think people have to come to term, that developing time will never decrease, because he always tries to beat himself and come up with something new, and these things just take more time by default.
Ironically, he would make more money, by just settling on one standard, releasing episode after episode, then the full game remaster and ride of into the sunset, but dude got addicted to the praise and there is no way back now.
Just imagine if there would be someone out there to actually challenge him, boy oh boy 24-36 months per episode would be considered "fast"