I like the art, but if the art is the bottleneck, I would absolutely support using AI in the process to get a faster workflow.As I said, the updates taking a long time is expected and par for the course for this game. It's always possible you will end up being right, but I've never got that feeling from this dev. And, of course, not all devs are the same: a pattern that you believe you see still doesn't equate to determining the eventual outcome. You don't have to agree, but I personally won't believe this is abandoned unless the dev officially says it is. I don't think your view is any more realistic than mine.
Of course he rejected it! He's put all of this time into hand-drawing everything so far, why on earth would he abandon that halfway through? Speeding things along isn't the point with this game; crafting the scenes with artistic love is. Sorry and no offense intended, but I think using AI for anything in this is a terrible idea.
But most likely, the dude is just real busy with real life so it is what it is. AI or no, it will be a slow process. One that realistically might never finish.