It's a sad and cynical view but I honestly cannot say you are wrong as I suspect much the same is going on. It could even happen unconciously as a pressure or a slow temptation over a long time corrupting honest intentions rather than some initial sinister plan.
Specualtion is half the fun, at least if we aren't getting fed fresh content to distract us. It's all we have sometimes.
For this particular game I'm leaning towards it being some kind of attention or focus problem causing this scattered and dispersed effort that is probably wasting a lot of time and energy, but we'll have to see how it goes over time to see if it goes full on cash grab. Sadly all too often people will mega simp and paypig forever even after the developers of some games just straight up piss in the faces of the supporters and give them nothing for months or even longer! The caution or suspicion is in part a case of "once bitten, twice shy" in the scene, I think.I also don't think the "I have issues" is a valid excuse to steal money from people. The rest of us have to turn up and do a job if we want paid. I can't phone my boss and say I can't be bothered to do any work this month or quarter or half a year (or more, as I've seen with various games discussed here!). The boss doesn't care f I'm feeling down or tired. No one gets that kind of treatment outside of these situations where weird parasocial/paypig/simp type relationships form and they get held up on some kind of pedestal and allowed to behave in ways we would never allow people we know IRL to behave and we ourselves would not get away with such behavior.
Would any of us be happy if we ordered up a PS5 and the vendor just ghosted you for ages and then after you pestered them with emails they told you you weren't getting it because they were feeling sad or their dog was sick? Same with anything you ordered online, you'd be mad as hell. There's just this weird bubble with especially lewd games but these other crowdfunding games where for some reason the sunk cost fallacy makes people go loopy in the head and they forget what about money and reality in this special case and act like these people are their best friends and family.
If you're doing a project for free though then you can take all the time you like and do whatever you like as it's your free time then. It's only when you bring money into something then you have obligations. It's an important line that seperates them. If you don't understand obligations and duty that come with money you shouldn't be taking money as you're not responsible enough to handle it honestly and fairly.
