The same arguments can be made for Beats headphones. There are better products for less money but your average consumer is not going to figure that out. It follows to say that the Public Relations industry has more value than most engineers realize.
I don't know why you suddenly turn to saying engineers don't understand marketing (although that's not the same as public relations).
Just because a project doesn't do something well doesn't mean they don't know how to value it.
I might have given their words some thought if not for the fact the kickstarter link has an undisclosed referral in it: kickstarter.com...bla?ref=2iw5zq
Totally unintentional, came from copying a link from a website. I just removed the referral.
This whole thing has led me to wonder - does crowdfunding encourage crappy products?