Nah, the news of "new team" were here somewhere late summer start of autumn. Possibly team just didn't work out and that is one of the reasons of no update. In that case it would be totally logical for the last standing person to postpone the payments and still finish an update.I'd expect the complete opposite... noone is willing to work on a no pay basis for long.
If they truely established a new team only a month or two ago they wouldn't even be that attached to the project nor have much saveing to do the job without payment.
just a guess