I haven't actually read anything about Star Citizen before, so these articles are really interesting. I played the shit out of Freelancer when I was a kid. I can see why people got pumped up about it.
Based off the first article, it seems like their problems are a combination of picking the wrong game engine, outsourcing development to contractors of varying quality, and choosing an indefinite donation website instead of a limited Kickstarter campaign.
That last point is the most interesting to me. Because, on the face of it, having a website with a donation system set up seems way better than Kickstarter, which lasts a set period and then ends. That way, people can still donate after that set period.
But here, it seems to have vastly overcomplicated the project. Rather than getting a few million dollars in a 30-day timespan, then building the game with that budget to those expectations, they've had a budget that just keeps constantly climbing as people with a sunk cost donate more and more over time. And that actually hampers game development; as the budget climbs and the mission statement gets larger and larger, development gets overburdened in ways they couldn't have expected at the start.
With game development you really need to set the budget and the timetable at the start and stick to it, because it's far too easy to just keep adding features and over-engineering until you've burned through all your money. I don't think Roberts is maliciously mismanaging the funds at all; I think this is just an Apocalypse Now situation. They have too much money and too much time, and little by little, they're going insane.
(That said, Apocalypse Now is one of the greatest films of all time. So maybe this story will have a happy ending.)