I don't think it's a matter of who gets access to XF2 first or not. Personally, I think it's very reasonable if Chris and Brogan have full access to it (though Brogan said he doesn't, not sure about Chris), considering they're both staffs at Xenforo. I also don't think it's a huge deal when addon developers drop a project (personally that is, since I usually know how to fix it myself and I haven't used any large addons where I need to figure out the entire Xenforo programming layout).
These are just my opinions. While looking for a pre-defined avatar add-on, I saw at least 5-6 different threads asking about it which usually mean others like myself didn't bother asking as others have already asked. Then you look at the suggestion forum, and those same people, or people like me, didn't comment or like it. So it drops to the unpopular pile. I know some people are probably thinking, "Well, that's your fault and their fault for not looking at the suggestion forum", and although it is, I don't think it's entirely our fault or up to us to go about it. I used an addon made in 2012, that was also quickly dropped by the addon developer in 2012. I still use that same addon, as it wasn't too difficult for me to figure out how to fix it up to suit my own needs. But for a community admin/owner who doesn't know how to code at all or how to fix up an addon to suit his or her own needs, I can see it being extremely difficult and frustrating. There are user created tutorials on how to create an addon, how to read and write into xenforo database, and it's easy to figure out about the MVC framework used here, but the lack of official documentation will definitely put a lot of people off.
So why would I or others not purchase Xenforo 2? Like I said, if it's the same product, why should/would we? We have 18 or 32, or even as little as 2 addons already installed on 1.4.x that works. There is really no need for us to upgrade. Lets say somebody uses 1.4.4 and then 1.4.5 comes out and breaks half their addon. Would upgrading to Xenforo 2 fix those addons? The answer is no. And I don't expect it to either, cause that would be silly and unreasonable as those addons can be anything. I don't expect the developers to code everything cause that could be over a thousand addons for all we know, but I do believe it would be wise of them to improve on existing features with more options that would take away the uncertainty of addons that could break at anytime. Being certain that an option is there and won't break as it's part of the official release would give people more security and more of a reason to purchase Xenforo 2.