that logic doesn't work when you go for an entire decade and still have literally nothing to show for it. Let's not compare anything to this. Cyberpunk was released before it was ready, and needed some more polish for sure, **but it was a content-complete 100+ hour game.
Squadron 42 has taken a decade mainly due to a major change around 2016 that the project took. You see, the original single player portion (squadron 42) was just a tutorial for the Persistent Universe (Star Citizen). Early on the two games, Star Citizen and SQ42, where actually just one and sold as such. That version of SQ42 was almost finished around 2016, but Star Citizen was stuck in the mud because the version of CryEngine CIG was working on simply couldn't realize Chris' vision. It was going to take 5 or more years to upgrade and modernize CryEngine to allow the type of persistence online sandbox that Chris wanted. Since SQ42 was merely a tutorial there was no reason to release it, especially since it was apparently terrible with bad flight mechanics and a tacked on FPS system. So they decided to expand SQ42 into its own game and split its development from Star Citizen. Since then SQ42 has been a separate purchase from SC and has ballooned out to be an open world space epic that takes place in the Odin Star System.
For a while SC and SQ42 where developed in tandem with SC getting most of the work. Each shares the same code base so work on one can be used on the other which is how CIG developed until until SC hit a major tech hurdle that ground development of the Persistent Universe to a halt. That tech hurdle was CIGs ability to wrangle CryEngine into something that could support all of SC's systems AND allow world persistence. For this they would need true item persistence tech and a fancy Server Meshing system that simply didn't exist yet in online gaming. So while the tech programmers started hammering away at CryEngine to hopefully fix an issue that would kill SC (and I mean kill the entire project if it doesn't work) about 70% of the company's 800 employees were switched over the SQ42. Overnight CIG basically changed the way it developed the two games. Their new mantra was "we develop new gameplay tech for SQ42 first and then port that to SC". Tech that only SC needed (like salvage) got squeezed off from development resources, and the content going into the Persistent Universe slowed. It has gotten so bad that this year there was only 1 major patch for SC, which is down from the usual 4 major patches a year. CIG has blamed this on the need to finish Persistent Entity Streaming (PES), the first of new Persistence techs that will allow SC to exist in the future, which is true, but one shouldn't ignore the fact that the company has completely shifted to SQ42 leaving a skeleton crew to add content to "The Verse". Also, right now most of the money they having coming in is going to SQ42 which has a lot of people pissed off as this money is mostly from SC ship sales.
The hilarious thing about all of this is if Chris had decided to pitch SQ42 and SC this year he could probably achieve it in half the time due to modern engines (UE5 especially).
The TL/DR of this is that CryEngine and Chris' vision are the reasons SQ42/SC has taken 10 years to develop. The version of CE they are using has basically been completely rebuilt to the point that it isn't really CryEngine anymore, and has tech in it that didn't even exist in gaming 10 years ago. On top of that SQ42 has become a full game that will be launching on PC (and likely Ps5/Series X).
CIG's hope is that SQ42 sales will fund additional growth in the company so that more people can be hired and a sequel to SQ42 can be green lit without hurting SC's development like SQ42 is doing now. 2023 is the year server meshing is brought online in Star Citizen and if content and ship development doesn't pick up after it gets in (ie. if the company doesn't refocuse their employees on SC) the community is going to revolt.
All that said I love SC and I am hopeful for SQ42. CIG is actually attempting to do things that no other big developer is doing right now. I hope they succeed.