I agree good things take time. The dev team is small and some people are treating this like those commercially produced games, where they have their own share of such people.
I get the impression that this is more like a hobby rather than a full time job. I make things as a hobby as well, so I understand. If I was at a job making something, I'd try to do it by standards, but when I get home and make something I want, I'd treat it as my own baby and put time into it.
Not to mention it isn't even listed on platforms like Steam or GOG for broader audience. Which reminds me, that's how Rimworld started out too, with backing from the community and modders. It wasn't until very few years ago that game launched on Steam.
I was in Rimworld alpha too, man did that game change a lot during the process and it took years. Same as this game, good dev interaction/feedback and active mods in the community. I recall threads like this popping up from time to time.
If it was on the major platforms 100% the calculation on update timelines would need to change. I'm in a few giant messes of game on steam where the devs rush out untested garbage to speed up the patch process and all it nets us is 4 pages of bug fixes, also angry players. So I'd say slow and good is better.
Also you bring up a important point, the modding community. It's fully supported here like for Rimworld and influences the healthy growth of the game, speaks volumes about the dev involved when they are willing to include the best stuff into the core game. A lot of devs hubris prevents that, thankfully that's not the case around here.
In the end we aren't making the game but we are helping to shape it. Realistically that's the most we could hope for.