Larian staff do read the forums especially for feedbacks from my experience during the dragon commander Beta.
I think it is not due to the risk, but on the management level (
http://www.cracked.com/article_20727_5-reasons-video-game-industry-about-to-crash.html). Management from big gaming industries are more business oriented than being a gamer. I believe that swen is more of a gamer than a business man.
To be fair, it only took Larian $10M+ to make (one of swen's blog said Divinity: Dragon Knight Saga cost them 6M+ euros and they reached break even on its development cost, so 10m should suffice for original sin) as compared with AAA titles (bioshock infinite with $200m budget *100m development cost, 100m marketing*). Look at the remakes of first person shooter games, the game play is somewhat similar in each sequel, the story line is somewhat recycled but still sold well due to its brand recognition although the User ratings are very very low.
You should read Swen's blog. You will learn a lot from it from a game developer's perspective.
