I totally agree with you.
Only the people who contribute can "re-educate" these devs by stopping contributing and demanding concrete advances for each work. The problem is that people are afraid that they will stop contributing and the dev will abandon a project that is very loved by the community. Unfortunately this would happen most of the time, but to be honest it would be a "deliverance". New devs will emerge more... "Educated"...
Yeah in several game forums on this site there have been fear mongers' who insist the devs be treated with kid gloves, no one can say anything negative or critical of the dev and yeah that they will stop if they don't have people blindly donating.
In some ways they aren't wrong but it is always up to the dev and only the dev if they want to end their game. They can whine and complain about being mistreated but the bottom line is, if they want a healthy community of people who feel good about donating to them then the devs generally need to treat the people supporting them better and they really haven't been.
I myself would rather let a game die then constantly deal with the drama of devs making bs excuses etc.
I think you and I and hopefully others are completely on the same page. Glad I am not the only one.