I think Steam and GoG also offer refunds that exceed those limits, it just doesn't happen automatically.
I also want to point out that SS development is taking a long time for a limited scope game. Since frequency of updates dropped as time went on, I wonder if it's just that updates got bigger, Alex got somewhat tired of developing the game, or it's the maintenance piling up.
Some portion of this is that updates aren't just "new ships/weapons" content packs. They're entire systems....or another economy rework. It's important these things are thought through and tested properly, especially because the game doesn't often just lift from what's popular. The skill system is on its 2nd major overhaul since i started playing and I'm pretty sure there were a few more before that. They could get away with a MMO style tree and be done with it but a lot of what makes this game great is real time put into figuring out what systems are fun and what aren't rather than just dropping in what's easy.
Ultimately though these conversations always boil down to the same arguments. Someone thinks updates should be faster/better/stronger, someone else thinks that in their dev environment/personal setting/workplace it would be faster, and maybe that's true, but at the end of the day small projects like this have things like this happen.
Star sector sure as *** isn't churning out junk updates, which I am happy for, and whatever the reasons for the frequency of the updates (code debt, burnout, personal life) I frankly don't care. I do wish we could get more info/content on upcoming updates but I understand the hell that is unfulfilled promises in code dev because something you thought might be cool got everyone excited and turned out to be an unreasonable hell to implement and now that's all you hear about.
Its been stated a few times that part of the silence on this new patch relates to it having a lot of content that's in flux(my take on that being some because they're unsure it will make it and some just because they're unsure it'll make it this patch) mixed with "spoilers/surprises". Based on just what we know (story points/skill rework, new weapons/ships, some stuff related to planetary systems/missions/story) it makes sense that this isn't just some numbers tweaks, and god knows what we don't know, because at the end of the day it's a very small team doing quite a lot of work with god knows what going on outside of it.
I don't think the development has ever been cagey/dismissive about any of this, so while i can understand the frustration for people who might want it to be faster, i think it's pretty lame to compare this to some of the other clusterfucks that have come out of the gaming industry. If the game never updated again i'd be sad but I still wouldn't regret buying it in the slightest, especially with how much has already been able to be done through mods.