More often than not, its easier to look at things with some objectivity if you have no direct stake in it. Emotions will cloud judgement more severely than most people admit.

If 18mths delay is acceptable to the KS backers, bless them all. They deserve a good product.

However, if these "updates" were to stand up to scrutiny, then I really do not see why they have to be kept 'private'.
Also, if the claim is industrial espionage, then that's not a valid reason either as already pointed out. An industrial spy would have jumped in as a backer to get first hand information anyway.

Unless there has been additional industrial partners plowing (a big chunk of) money into the Helix company, the money collected from KS backers and pre-orders isn't sufficient to finance what has been described here.

It will be barely sufficient for a country like China, most definitely not enough for Canada.

I may have missed out on that but has it been mentioned somewhere ? The costs of all this equipping and components ? And where all the money is rolling off from ?