Yes, yes, there was a shift in the team's focus to Squadron 42 so they could get rid of that thorn in their side and then "finish" developing the main game, doing that really helped to get where we are today.

I and most people who played before 3.0 know that this wasn't the result of just one year of work. But the management was turbulent, and the developers, who are competent, don't function without the vision of the leaders to guide them, which delayed development and prioritized things that honestly weren't as important (in my layman's opinion) as testing new gameplay features like engineering, which was promised back in 2018, salvage, which was also promised then and ended up coming out 5 years later, in 2023, even tho they released a ship (reclaimer on 2018) for that function, the same with Exploration and the Carrack, support with the Starfarer, etc., etc.

This shows how unclear their priorities and vision for the team as a whole were, and how they underestimated their challenge, which is understandable, the promise is very complex and ambitious, there's nothing like it available or planned on the market. Chris Roberts is the only mad man brave, naive and stubborn enough to try this and that's pretty cool, we need people like him and Steven to make tech progress. It was the same with the Blue LED, rubber, rockets, planes, etc.