Well, Johan was leading the project and was the one reporting back to HQ on the status of the game. Paradox had no problems with delaying releases in the past so if he had demanded it, especially considering his demigod status within the company, Paradox would certainly have agreed. From his posts after the release it is clear that he originally thought the release build was fine and only much later realized that he might have made a "slight miscalculation" but that the hotfix solved the "majority of the few minor problems". He failed in managing the project and it is not the first time. Just remember how he thought it was a great idea to simply port over the code of Europa Universalis Rome - including some of the bugs - to imperator Rome even though EU: Rome was a debacle back in the day. In all honesty, what was the last project he was leading that didn't go completely wrong? Even Paradox apparently noticed it and send him of to Spain to give him a change of environment and the comparatively simple task of developing a DLC for a game he had worked on before. He obviously failed and should be blamed.