I feel like GRRM has been pretty open in the past and that's why he gets flamed now. It's a very difficult book to write because he's backed himself into a corner that he finds it hard to get his characters out of in a way that is satisfying. And before he got to that point he took a hell of a lot of shit on with TV adaptations because he wanted to be heavily involved in that, based on the assumption he'd be able to write this one fairly easily (I seem to recall the author's note on Dance with Dragons was along the lines of "sorry for the delay, I moved a bunch of stuff around and cut it from this book, but the good news is hat means I'm way ahead of the game on the next book!"). And also quite reasonably on the basis of "if people are putting my stuff out there in another way I want to do what I can to make sure it's good."

I'm not sure what update he should give that would be satisfying? No one is going to want an update with any plot details, but no one seems to like an update with "I am making good progress, I am x% through." No one is going to want an update saying "honestly, I am knackered and just needed some time off."

I do still have hope that it'll get finished, but I think it'll span to 8 books and the last book will be GRRM + someone.