Except it kinda IS about Kevin. He's extremely OCD and its to the point where its crippled the game. I only keep up with CATA casually, and -I- know about it. Every so often it flares up into some huge fight and a developer leaves or (more commonly) just ceases assisting. They've long since given up on actually improving the game and have just gotten to the point where every single thing becomes about optimizing realism; except its not a realistic game.
And they'll incorporate items under the guise of realism, and when it is pointed out they make no sense from a realism perspective, will just kinda shrug - like Moose and wolves in the northeast running around in EVERY AREA killing people. Moose are dangerous, sure. But they are not broad-ranging animals running around all of the 13 colonies slaughtering people. I've lived in Western PA, Eastern PA, MD and NJ; you cannot run outside of your house in most of these areas and find Moose waiting to slaughter you. Same with wolves; wolves are not dangerous (or common) creatures.
Likewise, there are pretty amusing discrepancies with the weather; the whole thing feels like not so much the 'northeast' as much as it does 'what someone from the southwest thinks of the northeast'. Its gotten better in this sense over the years, to be fair....AND....those are old (and minor) arguments - but they are a good example of what I mean.
At the end of the day, issues like the solar panels, vitamins, dirty clothing - come down to that its Kevin's show. He wants to move away from CATA as a 'game' to cata as an ultra-detailed 'simulation' - and he has people willing to work with him on this. I disagree (many do) - but Kevin does have people who agree with him.
And until someone forks the project, it will remain Kevin's show, because only he has the free time, organization and vision to keep a team together; as much as I wish someone else would make an alternative fork. It might even be better for Kevin's version in the longrun, so long as it was done without acrimony, as an 'alternative perspective' seen in action can give people an alternative way of looking at things, so long as they borrow inspiration from each other.
I don't see any of that happening, but I do think CATA is essentially finished as a game. I mean, they still do stuff everyday, but its increasingly meaningless stuff, the equivalent of an OCD person like 'Monk' rearranging their office again and again.
Edit: In all fairness however, while I oppose them removing the solar panel CBM, and note they were cool from a gameplay POV, and oppose removing features that are good and provide something unique 'just because' - they were pretty silly. So, the opposing POV could be - wow, look how brave he is for 'maintaining a vision'. I mean, I don't HOLD that point of view, but you could reasonably argue it. Again, to be fair.