Good post OP.
About a year ago I posted my first and only request in the wish list forum, asking if HTC would consider doing a weekly update on the progress of any new work they're up to.
It seems that this has come to fruition, Hitech and Skuzzy have been posting very regular updates, giving both information and videos on the new graphics and such.
IMO though it's had the opposite effect of what I was hoping for - even MORE complaining. If I had a dollar for every "well I'm out, my machine will never run that" or other similar comments both here and on ch200, I would....have a lot of dollars. I often wonder what would happen if Hitech won the 300 million dollar lottery they have in the USA. I wouldn't blame him in the slightest if he posted a big picture of him giving everyone the finger on the front page, and just walked away from all of this.
It must be hard to put in so much work over the years, and have customers constantly criticize every little detail and aspect of that effort. It's the worst catch 22 out there, use whatever catch phrase you like - dog chasing its tail, damned if you do, damned if you don't, rock and a hard place - HTC is living proof they're all true.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not about writing a puff piece, and I have my own personal complaints, beliefs, and issues surrounding the entire product, but to participate in regular complaint threads that have statements like "this game is doomed", or "the numbers declining proves me right", is pretty ridiculous when you consider that this game has been around 15 years now. It's doubly so when most of the usual suspect complaining still subscribe and play.
To survive such a long period of time, and weather the storms that have come and gone both in the internet business world and beyond, says pretty much all anyone should need to hear. It must feel like a long road traveled though, looking back those 15 years, and however more the core team was at Warbirds/etc, and constantly have to deal with all the negative waves.
