It's not about rushing or abandonment, but in the long run it's not possible to do it like this, no matter the fan base. For me it's from business logic, as you mentioned, completely unsustainable.
Waiting three months for small snippet - I don't see it happening in the future. So this is either the last update, no matter what dev said, or there will be a different option to support the game or new direction for the game will come from the dev. At least this is what I think.
For now, I'm exited to get this update and we'll see what next month or two we get as info from dev.