It's pretty obvious they wanted to make their own unique game, realized they wouldn't get nearly as much funding or support, so just decided to label it a coc sequel.
Savin asked to be given the CoC sequel ages ago. It's just this is a different landscape in regards to now and then.
CoC was a mostly community driven project that went through god knows it's own set of drama due to Fenoxo alienating everybody, throwing temper tantrums, ban waving, and being a typical jerk face.
Most of the things you like in CoC1 wasn't made by anybody in the writing crew that exists today. Marble? Amily? Isbaella? Shouldra? Phylla? Izma? Ceraph. Unless I've misremembered these and more were other people who are obviously never writing for these games again. An entire laundry list could be used to explain how and why the well of community writers has dried right the hell up that I don't even want to bother getting into.
You'd think with more fleshed out followers the option to corrupt them would be a no-brainer, but I don't think corruption even bars you from of any characters like the first game.
Technically the first game didn't EVEN lock you out of the characters. Except for Savin's minotaur cum guzzling proto-Cait, characters like Sophie, Jojo, Amily, (technically Whitney), all had semi expansive routes for being corrupt. So did characters like Phylla and Sheila as was the entire point.
None of that exists here. Something something 'parser' something something. They get unsurprisingly
overwhelmed when it comes to doing things that would even remotely offer choice.
Also the sex scenes in this game keep getting worse. I know the nonsense is coming when we get to scenes that are 70% environmental observation, 29% dialogue, 1% sexual techniques.
Good news for you, Grade did say he will come back to corrupted centaur later.
It was always going to be coming. It was never abandoned. Having worked through many long term commitments over the course of my entire career. I'd be professionally embarrassed to leave something that comically half assed for that long.