What did you see that made you think "OpenAI wants to hype something right now"? I didn't see anything coming from them except Altman saying the leak was "unfortunate". I don't believe they are generating any of the Q* hype.
Yes. Keep in mind that, aside from their former board, they probably employ a good PR firm.
That doesn't mean there's a significant product behind it. A good PR firm can freeze attrition promising the next big thing any minute now... at least for a while. And when the product comes out and it's good enough but not amazing like their GPT hits -- attrition avoided. (Not that OpenAI has an attrition problem, but not for lack of trying by the other big players.)
I would go so far as to say it's evidence there isn't - GPT-4 doesn't need hype beyond word of mouth, Q* is clearly not in that situation.