I support an open minded community, and open minds do not think alike, especially with over 20k people. The few dozens/hundreds that are active in my opinion are the patient ones, those that visit rarely tend to be disappointed as they don't see the progress go as the active part does. Of course, testers and staff - people with access to the game - are a different branch and I believe most of them, at least from my perspective, want to persuade the random visitors that there is a lot going on and not to lose hope.
The poll that was opened and closed... well, I personally wouldn't close it because of a few random offtopic responses as there was still place for more answers from more people and perhaps some of the random visitors after reading the well formulated reasons why the game isn't out yet would be like "yea, perhaps they aren't lazy in there", but as I partly contributed to the topics closure with a response to a random thing, I am not the one to talk - though I said my opinion to begin with.
I agree with you both, but as an old timer on the forum - everyone should understand that certain things are just out of the question and are not going to happen. Even if a hundred or a thousand people voted "release the game in its current state", I believe the priorities of the devs are to make the server work close to flawlessly and it's not going to change. Same goes for repeated questions and demands, it gets tiring after a month or two, let alone literal years. People who aren't investing their time into this project should not be denied a say, but can't expect to have any real leverage on the decisions of staff. The long time supporters versus the impatient ones, as you called it, is just natural since the impatient ones won't be doing their own research and yet demand answers to FAQ questions all the time and long time supporters are tired of that, thus becoming impatient with the impatient ones. After years of answering the same questions over and over, you can't blame anyone for not being welcoming and cheery around people who genuinely can't be active and yet want to be a part of the community. There is no easy way to distinguish between members who are just lazy and those who are curious and want to know more.
Seeing as you joined early after the project began, you perhaps remember that before Tech Alpha started, the community was much more united, mostly because we have all been around for relatively short time and noone had access, we were all equal and just wanted to play the game. Over time it grew to the point where newcomers were being informed by active members, then by a bot responding to frequent keywords. All that is left now is the header text above chat, since most active members are partaking in testing and don't visit the Forum much, or can't be bothered to answer anymore (my case, I'll admit I am just lazy and tired to do repetitive stuff for so long) while new people keep pouring in and random visitors from the past stumble back here just to find out there are people playing while they are not. Unfortunately, there is no real way to fix this. Noone can make me be patient except me, noone can force anyone who stumbles by to read the entirety of the FAQ or even the header. I would be glad if the community was at its 2015/16 state, but that's unrealistic. Perhaps the best we can hope for is the game coming out and everyone being hyped and wanting to cooperate. I will make no further comments about the moderation teams decision/s as that's currently not related and not fitting the point I am trying to make.
My ramble went a bit random at times for quite too long, but hopefully the message got through - shit ain't perfect, but we all can do our best and it's not anyone's fault, its the natural way of things the way go.