While I would love a simpler, more readable project file, I understand that the tooling already out there relying csproj format, probably makes it not worthwhile changing.
Great and in those 10 months there was no alternative but to use the soon to be deprecated projects. And they released a 1.0 product like that.
Someone from Microsoft commented unofficially that there was pressure from partners who were using .NET Core in production to release a stable - which was very obvious and they put them self in a spot where they had to support a deprecated project.json system since people are using it in production while also developing the new system. Whoever decided on the release timelines dropped the ball.
The other 6 months I agree has left people in a limbo. Only people following the discussions closely would have an idea of which direction they were going.