Yeah frustrating a loyal player base is never a great idea, but from what I heard it was due to "Unavoidable manufacturing delays", in other words it was most definitely not planned this way. I have worked in manufacturing before and I know that sometimes s*** happens, like you can design: all good, prototype: all good, produce tooling: all good, hit GO: "OMFG huge problem we didn't foresee shut it down omfg"
I think where they are falling down is in the communications department, unavoidable manufacturing delays are unavoidable but no updates to your fan base is CERTAINLY avoidable and might be where the frustration arises.