The problem in general is that there are honest devs like e.g. 1thousand and dishonest ones like e.g. gumdrop. The dishonest ones, which will pull out every excuse under the sun, taint the reputation of the honest ones.
I believe 1thousand that he is sick, because he never gave us cause to doubt him, he always played above the table. Dev like e.g. 1thousand, Eva Kiss, Double moon, Mutt & Jeff, Ollane, SAZ, Usagitriplesix or After Choices to name a couple, are honest Devs, dedicated to their projects. They have earned trust.
Devs like e.g. gumdrop, crushstation, the Typist, Slonique to name a couple others, are the ones muddying the waters for all. Gumdrop is a chronic liar, who makes Baron Münchhausen look like a notary. The Typist announced LAST summer that the update was about 2 days away from being released, "nuff said". Despite verbose promises Crushstation´s game has drastically less content today than a year ago, but in his case it could be simply that he is inept to program what he wants to.
Those are Dev who have impressed multiple times, that you cannot trust any word they say.
As said above, 1thousand is NOT one of those. He is a guy who has earned some trust and goodwill from us.