Entertaining story - although as advice to anyone reading it, running up the clock without proactively notifying people that you're going way beyond your original estimate is a very good way to make getting paid incredibly difficult.
Still, it's a quick way to get a reputation for running up the clock.
Sometimes it might be worth it - maybe the plug would have been pulled sooner if he had invoiced regularly. But it's still a risk.
This is, why you leave a paper/email trail.