Holy wall of text batman. I'm just going to comment on the crowdsourcing bit at the bottom.
The pledge packages tend to offer diminishing returns the higher they get. People put that stuff into crowdsourcing campaigns because you never know if someone REALLY wants what you are offering and has the cash to back it. Apparently a nice thank you note isn't good enough so they tend to throw in crazy extras the higher it gets. RRG is not the first nor the last to offer a trip to visit the developers and pretty much everything at 1000$ or above requires a fair amount of involvement from the backer. If someone decided to back that, its their choice.
So far with DCS there have been 3 different projects, the Mig-21, DCS WW2, and the F-35 spread out over 1.5 years. Two have been funded (Mig-21 and WW2) while the F-35 wasn't. I personally agree with that result. The Mig-21 wasn't asking for that much money, 10,000$ish I think, and it was being done by a long time DCS/FC modder. The Mig-21 project has had the misfortune of paypal freezing their funds, likely until the project is released. The F-35 was somewhat sketchy due to the subject matter and relative unknowns regarding Kinney Interactive and reached only half its requirement and have not made much noise since. RRG's WW2 project had a confusing kickstarter campaign. On one hand they did lots of great videos discussing the game and interviewing the devs, on the other I am still confused on how its going to fit in with DCS as a whole and RRG changing things up as it went didn't help much.
I'd argue that crowdsourcing is on the cusp of being overdone within DCS. But really it depends on who is doing the fundraiser, what they are trying to do, how much they are asking for, and how it is presented. Honestly DCS is best off with a combination of pre-orders and crowdsourcing. Pre-orders have been largely successful and you can get an idea of what a product will be from other users feedback. The two crowdsource projects have a yet to be determined status that will impact the communities appetite for future crowd sourced projects. If it starts to get abused, the community will fight back by not funding it.
