Well, I don't see anybody arguing that. It's not even an opinion, it's a fact caused by the ever-increasing complexity of the game. It takes longer not only to develop the game, but to playtest each chapter and write the walkthrough for it, too. And it's definitely not the argument of "the creator became lazy" because you're giving the same work output, but there's more work with each chapter. Like, imagine if you're working in the office and are used to doing x amount of work per day to fit the deadline. Then imagine that the boss requires from you to do the 2x amount of work in the same time that you did x amount of work. Can you do it? One time, on overdrive, perhaps. But consistently? It's just not humanly possible, you can only produce 1.25x amount of work per month by staying longer in the office. But if you're required to do 3x amount of work? And it's not the matter of "We have this pressing deadline, it'll be easier after that." It will be the requirement for as long as you're working on that product. A sensible person would just peace out at this point because no amount of $ and good word from your boss is worth it to overwork yourself like that. So I wouldn't be all that surprised that it takes longer for the game to get updated. It's just the nature of a multi-branched storytelling and there's really no way around it. It's easy to say "Invest in more people", but finding the reliable people who are fit to do the job is a pain in the ass as well. We know Eva's been trying to find the person to do the line work, but it's unclear what became of it, so one must assume that either the person turned out to be not up to the task or they simply quit
No, it's not easier. It's easier to produce 10 more linear scenes than to write 10 variations of the same scene and then also have 3 new choices which would make it 13 variations in the future unless some branches get merged. That's why very few devs are willing to dive into writing a game with multiple choices that alter the course of the game. Most games have up to 10 total branches to take into account, usually having 1 branch per character. Because it's a smarter thing to do when you're just one single person developing a game.