Like I said before I think the major focus on what ifs and the giant gap between main releases to focus on them (regardless of what wwg said that they were only done in "free time") soured many peoples perceptions, mine included. Obviously one could argue that the delay between updates was worth it because of the drastic step up in quality and how wwg addressed many criticisms, including some I mentioned in my review. For instance the animation quality was drastically improved and there were none of those odd real time 3d delay trying to change facial expressions. But the perception alone that all that time was spent focusing on that instead of getting closer to some sort of conclusion to a game that's kind of getting long in the tooth (it is nearly 3 years old and the main girls (primarily ophelia tbh) still have some trepidation about engaging in certain acts that really aren't that far from where you now anyway, the cats out of the bag) does have a long tail.
I admit being able to turn that shit off and it being in end states that reset you to the normal path, is certainly handled better than it could be though and I'm sure we've all seen far worse implementations. But the time spent on those in addition to how much teasing/blueballing/arguably padding(tip is in and BOOM a character shows up and stops you so you gotta do more events) you get in the normal path add up to why there is a bad perception of it. Not to mention in a lot of earlier chapters you can see a bit of a difference in quality between the scenes and again that adds to the notion it's got more of a focus even if the actual scene count favors the normal path.
All in all, your only "real" complaint is the time it takes to develop an episode.
Everything else falls flat with no ground to stand on. You seem to know and remember most of what has been said of the development of both the game and the what ifs so I won't bother to repeat it as there's not even any "flesh on the horse left to whip". But I will say, he has stated time and time again, paraphrasing
"I feel the highest tier deserved more than the beta version of the game and therefore I'm taking suggestions for a monthly mini-game that will be made outside of 'business hours', including monthly wallpapers".
The story, if played from start to finish as it is now, is perfectly acceptable as far as pacing goes since WWG obviously wants/has to:
1) Write a believable story of a youth returning to his old home where he has a family with whom he shares familiar relationships, and due to a villainous precence' influence starts to explore those relationships sexually. For it to not feel cheap it needs steps to follow to again, be believable.
2) Include excellent humor and references rarely seen in adult games such as this.
3) Make every single character, including posing, styling and backgrounds etc... (you know the deal) as well as make all of the animations
4) Code the game and also recently, go through the whole entire game and change dialogues and renders deemed forbidden on the platform it is released on.
5) Do all of the above alone
Add to this he also has a life outside of developing this game and you can start to see why it takes a while.
He has for the record stated that we're not long off from the final episode as well and is planning a second game not related to Power Vacuum.
