I think they're starting to understand things. Going by their comments at the PC2 forum, I think they are well aware of how bad the situation is. They've come to terms with reality, so to speak.
What people don't understand (and they don't need to understand from a customer perspective) is how difficult the PC1 development was. How ballsy it was and how miraculous is that the end result is as good as it is. From the interaction with WMD, to the platforms change, to being multiplatform, to having very limited resources and only having access to a proper QA in the latests stages of development, I can see why they're proud of the end results. Not from a productive point of view, but from a creative point of view. I mean, think for a moment how this game came to be. Nowadays nobody is doubting that Project CARS is a thing, but back then they were putting all their eggs in one basket. They were making plans based on promises alone. That's really a hard place to start from, if you ask me.
Now, the criticism was mostly deserved and still is. But I can see where he is coming from. Specially when you equate the manners in which most people criticise (myself included at WMD forums back in the day).