LFS don't do marketing. I'm not sure if you're aware of that, Anarchi-H. PR is an integral portion of marketing, which as I say the devs don't and never have done. I'm also missing the bit where people other than the LFS devs are paying the LFS devs' bills. AFAIK, the devs are paying their bills.
Apart from buying some extra skin downloads, I've not paid anything to the devs since I bought my S2 licence, have you? I certainly am not owed anything from that purchase that hasn't been delivered. In fact I have 2 more cars than when I bought it and the promise of another.
As for mantras, the devs have said they're continuing to develop LFS. They skipped over an update, which was unfortunate, but they've explained fully how that came to pass. Nobody is being kept in the dark.
The difference between LFS and large game houses is already well-established. IMO, one of the best aspects of LFS is that deadlines aren't set. The quality of the updates, when they do come, is proof enough for me.
I remember when EA met their Battlefield2 deadline by releasing a dedicated server fully in the knowledge that it wouldn't work. At all. Gimme LFS over that crap any day.