I suppose I should have elaborated.

Chris Roberts begin developing Freelancer with the same amount of total simulation that Star Citizen promises.

Freelancer repeatedly overshot development timelines and Roberts was running out of money. He had to go to Microsoft for cash. Microsoft gave money to develop Freelancer in exchange for Roberts being essentially demoted to a consultant, and Microsoft taking charge. Microsoft immediately began cutting features and mechanics to turn Freelancer from an amorphous project into a shippable game.

If you know that, then seeing Roberts in charge of a new game, with no oversight and essentially infinite development time, the resulting quantum superposition state of Star Citizen’s release should not be surprising.