From what I understand, the "update" was just a toe-dip into the water by the dev to see if they were interested in coming out of hiatus (since apparently they were burnt-out). So they added some features to see if they wanted to go back into developing the game full-force again.
I think they decided they weren't interested right now, and shifted their focus to their other game for the time being.
So things being unfinished, buggy, or missing photos is kind of a bummer, sure, but it's not even a "real update" in the sense that it's finished. Dev just put things together for their own interest, and put out what they had done after they realized they weren't interested. There was no greater plan of bringing the game out of hiatus or putting out anything finished, it's just a "I'm gonna code for the game a bit to see if I want to get back into doing this", and they decided they didn't (at least for Clean Slate).
Really can't fault 'em for that. Dev didn't have to release anything tbh.