From the perspective of a software developer I see no real issues here. The thing is that Larian wants to deploy builds that are stable obviously, so they cannot simply push anything they work on it into every new patch. This is why a lot of things seem to move very slowly (aside from things like graphics and very general systems).
Word. It's really, really hard to convey how difficult it is build, test, and deploy any moderately-complex software project, how every change can have fractal implications on things you would have assumed are completely unrelated. Making change is hard. Not that it's impossible or shouldn't be done, but it's hard.
Locking down EA to a very small set of content in order to facilitate the work we don't have insight into is a perfectly reasonable decision.
I think there's a marketing aspect as well. Think of the reviewers sharpening their keyboards for full release. "After long wait, Baldur's Gate 3, with thousands of early-access players salivating for the full release, is finally here!" versus "For the thousands of early access players, while there will be some new surprises in this release, much of it will be familiar."
For $60 we get to play some content, respond to it, and be part of the marketing for full release. I'm fine with that. I only started playing like the week patch 5 came, so the only real change I've seen is 5 -> 6, and those have all been great changes. Based on what I've read about previous iterations, there's been continuous, albeit perceived-slow, improvement. I'm not concerned about a let down when we finally get to full release.
