Hi, I actually tried to buy this game from Zanz, I found out he makes a lot more money than the community thinks, but probably not enough to pay for another developer...
He however is very protective of his properties, and isn't interested in giving them up anytime soon either. Finally, these properties like EtG are side ventures and he has a full time job as an engineer.
Because of this, we have the unique position of getting updates only during major break times, that's usually why you see a bunch of activity around Christmas time, and general maintenance only rest of the other times.
For everyone who is bothered by this, various community projects to build a 'new' EtG have been started, the one with the most traction is openEtG... support it with art, donations, etc, if you want further advancement. Otherwise, accept the nature of the EtG game as is.