A whole succession of publishers were extremely eager to publish LDV with Harlan, despite its increasingly dismal track record. Harlan's bad track record was due in large part to his ability to convince people that this time really and truly he was going to do it. If he hadn't, the projects would never have gotten scheduled in the first place.

I'd be a lot more optimistic about JMS if his announcement didn't sound so much like Harlan: promising things he can't possibly guarantee (interest of unnamed publishers), grandiose plans with no explanation of how he plans to accomplish them (vast expansion of already unprecedentedly enormous book), incredibly quick timeline ...