It's simply a fact: before BB, there was no such quality.
That's largely open to interpretation, but it's an indisputable fact that it was surpassed, and within its own lifetime.
Even the players who demanded that Eric be removed quickly discovered that the absence of serious obstacles impoverishes the game and makes it less interesting and intriguing.
Eric wasn't interesting or intriguing.
He could have been, but was just another badly handled plot device, and poorly implemented mechanic that just raised more questions about Ann, Kira, and how monumentally, borderline retarded they were, even in the face of literal photographic evidence.
I think if DS hadn't abandoned the game, he would have eventually continued developing Eric's storyline and/or added a new rival and new competition to the game.
He didn't have to abandon the game though... He could easily have made changes that made the game "Patreon friendly", and it would have been ridiculously easy to revert it via third-party means with just a text file change. Literally, that's how the mods people were making worked, including new dialogue for their mods.
DS lost interest in BB before abandoning it, and decided to do the remake of Glamour long before Patreon finally took notice of BB, just like he lost interest in the Glamour remake and decided to add a BB remake that replaced the alternative male version of Kate (Alex), then devoting more time development to that second remake at a detriment to the original remake's progress, which resulted in further damage to DS's reputation.
Let's not forget the same abandoning plot lines and characters that happened in BB, and kept happening in the Glamour remake before and during the BB remake...
Won't speak for everyone, nor will I speculate on the amount and level of potential support. Personally, I would support it right now.
It's a fact that abandoning BB severely diminished his potential for financial support. Not even an Eric-less remake of BB in the remake of Glamour brought them back.
Add in a history of disingenuous excuses, broken promises during development, demonstrably false exaggeration of the scale of work done in each update, as well as underhanded manipulation of voting patrons (which were also only the highest tier supporters) and DS's reputation is literally worth less than shit.
Take the rose-tinted glasses off...