I don't disagree with that. I think in practice, the reason the campaign was so successful initially was that players wanted the dreamer to be in charge of ever

I don't disagree with that. I think in practice, the reason the campaign was so successful initially was that players wanted the dreamer to be in charge of every aspect of the project and to dream big... so once you get locked into that cycle, it's really hard to get out of it, even if you are someone who's good at delegating, which isn't CR's strong suit. Knowing when and how to hand off "your baby" is harder when you're getting all that positive affirmation that people are really excited for you to do it, and your name and reputation are totally riding on living up to gamers' expectations. It's a sort of self-reinforcing trap, and I'm not making excuses for the excesses of hubris, but nothing would have happened if not for that hubris to begin with. I guess if there's one conclusion I could draw it would be that dreamers need to be balanced by a practical co-founder with equal power in cases like this. But that was never a real possibility here.