Just to be a glass half full guy for a post...... Hopefully this tardiness is a temporary bump in the road going from the drip feed model to the all in 1 go model.
Admittedly it is 1 - 2 years later than I hoped (I was suggesting this to people after the horizons delays and also when beyond was announced that hopefully the scope was so limited was because the majority of the team was working on a great paid premiun update but that is by the by)
however if new era ships complete, then the moment it is out, then hopefully those 100 devs or what ever will then go right onto producing the next era after that, leaving just a small team on new era to bug fix, which will hopefully mean that ED will never again be in the doldrums for as long as it has been.
So long as we dont get a message from FD in 2022 saying "well guys the 10 years are up**, its been a great ride, good night!" and so long as development is on going, as someone who is 43 I will hopefully still be around for future updates even if it does mean we are closer to 2030 to get to the ED kickstarter pitched game.
Personally I am more concerned now about the quality of the new features rather than the time line of them, I dunno about you guys but I have way more games in my collection than I have time to play, so I would rather fall back on those and ED new era knock it out of the park, than have a compromised release.
(of course there is the possibility of still having a lack lustre release even after the delay but lets not go there!)
#I have not forgotten the iceplanet render target teaser!
**I am not sure where the 10 year life span rumour came from, it is not something I ever saw officially mentioned but it seems to be talked about by many as a thing.