While UE5 has its issues, it has a great deal more future than UE4. Outside the vastly improved work flows, models and rendering tech available, all future updates will be UE5. Any Dev that is looking forward and hopes to be around for a while, has to consider it. Of course it adds time & learning curve, but the idea is that the end product will be better for it.
This is to say nothing of what has happened to multiple projects that succumbed to the "MORE NOW!!" demands of fans... especially here, where most have no intention of paying for it. Look at all the seasonal AAA games (looking at you Destiny 2) that turned into recycled trash because they had to pump something out every 3 to 4 months. Now try to condense that into a small team Developer trying to get a new IP afloat. It is easy to get scared you're going to lose your audience, start cranking out whatever easy thing you can to appease demand, and completely lose sight of the overall game.
I would like more too, but quality takes time, and I've already had my fill of fluff.
Few comments:
1) The latest and greatest always has more future. The issue is, you'll spend most of your time redoing work, whenever a new update comes out for the engine, as they always deprecate features. Its something I learned back in 2015, when I was developing in UE4, and upgraded from V4.08 to V4.11. Most of my mechanics relied on features that got deprecated and so it took me 3 months to find alternative solutions to them.
2) Improved rendering tech comes at a cost... usually on the customer's end. The UE4 build that this game had, ran at a smooth 60 FPS, for me at maximum settings. The newest build runs at about 20-30 FPS, for the same graphical appeal, also at maximum settings. And the new rendering with lumen, actually makes the game much brighter than before, so its lost its gloomy, grim-dark appeal, that attracted me to the game previously.
3) The end product is not always the better for it. Look at Duke Nukem Forever, and see how it constantly upgraded itself for the best available tech, and eventually drained the company of all its money, because they were constantly chasing the next best thing. Sometimes its better to complete a game in the current engine, then start working on a sequel with the new engine.
4) AAA has to churn out recycled trash because good and innovative stuff takes longer to do, and they have very impatient fans. And as their jobs hinge on the company having a good trading stock price, if their slowness results in the company doing poorly, they'll lose their jobs. So they try to push out the quickest content available, and that tends to be mostly garbage stuff that you see all other companies doing. If you taught gamers to be patient, and let the creative types be creative, you'd see better quality stuff in AAA games. It would just take longer.
5) As you say, quality takes time. But you don't always have the time to make it, before your fans leave you. And if they start to leave you, you'll want to provide them with something to keep them interested, even if its really bad gameplay. Its why some promising games, like the indie game, Book of Adventum (non-porn; on Steam), crashed and burned.
