Honestly at this point I don't think there's much point in ascribing motive to their actions, I don't think they're playing 5d chess they're eating the fucking pieces.
So far they've said they'd post an update to Steam when they have an ETA, then suddenly they have a date but no Steam update. They would push it out without testing, then it was late because they were testing it. Then they were uploading the new build to Steam, but there's no new/updated depot... then it was Steam's fault for a bit as they were awaiting approval, even though Steam don't require approval for patches and the private depot would show up instantly? Now it's because some of the dev team and/or volunteers missed deadlines?
It sounds more like Helius is just a pathological liar and the entire project is fuelled by chaos and mayhem. I think the only thing we can really surmise is that the game isn't in a particularly good state if they won't (or can't) push it out even with all the features they've cut.