By their actions, they are trying to reach as wide an audience as possible. In the case of Infinity Engine games, the biggest segment of this audience are BSN denizens. Even if they don't plan on making PE a modern-Bioware romance-fest, they still can't come out and say "What you BSN deviants want is not going to happen!" because they don't want to lose them. Following the same pattern, SA and NeoGAF are general-gaming communities at best, but they're very big compared to the RPG-focused communities. NeoGAF is full of weabos and I wouldn't even call SA a gaming community. They're as much a gaming community as 4chan is a gaming community. But, as long as Sawyer is an active member of SA, you can understand where his loyalties lie. As for them claiming those tiers before having raised the money, that's a good indicator of the quality of these communities. That's not a matter of us slipping up and not doing it too, it's a matter of principle: you shouldn't be doing that. All-in-all, decline of KS audiences encouraged by Obsidian.
GB isn't on the same level as BSN, but SA and NeoGAF are. I know the story about how Feargus claims that BuckGB gave him the idea of a Infinity Engine-like game because I've read that interview. However, if that's not just lip-service paid by Feargus to BuckGB, then there's a serious disconnect between Feargus (and the rest of the Obsidian leadership) and the requests of the RPG community. It seems outlandish to me to even think that Feargus heard about the community wanting an [not even that] old-school RPG the first time during that interview. What are these people doing on their time? They cocked up the PE KS campaign in multiple ways, they claim to have had no idea that the RPG community wanted old school games etc. If Feargus weren't one of the founders and owners of Obsidian, such missteps usually end in a pink slip.
Awesome! Keep at it.
