They've always been taking their time, though. Hence 8 years, right? And taking their time is not necessarily a bad thing. A bad thing would be if they gave up on developing the game completely. When we buy early access games and "the developers get their cookie", many times the motivation for developing the product fades, many abandon their games. You can see this PTSD in the gaming community quite clearly. After buying Valheim too, people were already starting to express their fears from the first weeks - "congrats on the success, but keep developing the game please" - somewhere around the steam posts. I too experienced this fear because I really liked the game and was really hoping the development continues fervently, to make a really good game.
Some players expressed the same fears with Bannerlord, saying the developers abandoned Bannerlord because they got their money - yet they're still pumping updates on the regular, so that is false. Slowly or not, what matters is that the game isn't abandoned in the end. Also, maybe we won't get all that we wish for Bannerlord, but it's still far from a bad game imo. By the end of EA I'm sure it will have good performance, and a little more content at least (I'm still curious and unsure of what they plan on adding for the late game/+ more side activities to do during peacetime, but we really need something in this area before full release).
Other than that we'll also have better modding support, satisfying a wide array of players needs indirectly. For me the game is overall pretty good unmodded already, and I feel I've got my money's worth so far. But if you don't feel that, just don't forget all that Bannerlord will offer. Not every game has this amount of potential and moddability. This is still mount and blade we're talking about, and we know that it can get pretty creative with the overhauls and all (which now will look better than ever). For a native version of the game (SP), it just realistically needs a bit more content (especially lategame and during peacetime) and some polish. For MP it's a whole other debate, but I'm waiting to see if and how they will satisfy the majority of players needs. Yet even if they don't introduce the warband system of choosing your own equipment (which many players have been asking for), a modder will surely do that in the future (custom servers). So, no matter the debate of what is better for the game or what the game needs, everything will settle in time in some way or another - officially or through modding, so the game still will offer plenty for most players. All of those reasons are why I think some of the negativity concerning the game is exaggerated, even if some of the criticism is indeed valid. Personally, I will wait until further development and we will see in the future if people (and myself) are (still) satisfied or not, and that's pretty much it. It really doesn't need to be more complicated than this. We don't need all the daily negativity, attacks on developers, etc... And sometimes it would be nice if we could have a positive post without people instantly jumping the OP about why he's wrong, when that is his perspective just as yours is yours. So, simplify things. Play the game if you enjoy it, give feedback (in a constructive way) if you may, or don't and wait until further development; It just makes life simpler, and the forum a little brighter, and we could all use that from time to time.