Nope. Sorry Zackman. That is what is called a copout. And a bad one.
What has been done is indubitably a lot of work. But. But, the game exists because of the community around it, right? Right. Therefore, just as you always fix bugs (nope, sorry) and listen to the players when they tell you there are things to be changed (nope, sorry), then it's equally your responsibility as devs to keep the community informed. Don't tell me it takes too much time to make a four line post 'we're on it, we're fixing it'. And don't tell me 'there's something wrong but we can't go into details' is defensible, either - as a matter of fact, it's particularly bad. As to 'we're all busy doing other things', well, perhaps then it's time to recruit other people so as to share the load and have a reasonable 24/7 coverage.
As to the fact that 'the game is free and we should be grateful whatever we get', see above. Once you build a community around a project there are standards of behaviour which one really should adhere to. Not tell people 'we should be ashamed of ourselves' when noone spent ONE QUARTER of the time you spent writing your post in composing a quick note 'folks, X happened, Y is working on it, ETA is Z hours'. Since you talk about reprehensible attitudes, right back at you, kind sir.
Does this make me an ungrateful sod? I'm sure I will be called as much. And I'm sure someone will question what I know of supporting a community. I have some first hand knowledge. And made damn sure that how no matter how much I got pissed when users were pushing my buttons, I kept my side of the bargain up, which was to treat the project as a work project, out of respect for all the people who contributed something to the community. Which is why, I freely admit, I'm no longer involved. I no longer have the time, though I must say I was never able to devote thousands of hours in a 7 month period to anything. Something funny to do with the way I count.