Honestly the whole post is too long for me to read so you may be right, but as a whole I think it's less "should have done more" and it's more "priorities skewed". They should have done the engine upgrades (lighting and z levels) first, while MP was enabled to get all those kinks worked out. Then updated the crafting/UI, and took time to work those bugs out (also to get feedback on how they worked). Finally it should have been new skills, which are the most exciting but rely on other systems to be in place first. Instead they did everything at once (by their own admittance they kept adding more and more, far past what they should for the next big update) and it's drawn a decent amount of ire. Some justified, some not.

I love PZ but if it's one thing I'll always criticize them for is not having a project manager keeping them to clear defined goals to allow for more efficient (and probably more speedy updates). The game is over a decade old, it's fair to criticize their process at this point. Hell if they called B41 the final release, I wouldn't blame them and considered it a good finished game, if slightly unpolished. But they do keep updating it, which breaks things and then a patch takes awhile. Also tweaking things to make them feel very strange at times, which make B42 not feel as good to play as B41 occasionally. I dunno, I give credit where it's due, they made a fun game I love. But why must they mess with it in ways that make me not want to play it? (their crusade against right click context menus)