The tumblr speculation strikes me as inaccurate as well. Scope and schedule conversations happen all the time. On a micro scale, there is often horse trading on what any given milestone will consist of and when assets/systems will land. A publisher conversation like:
"Feature X will likely miss for Milestone 5 but we were able to bring up Y and Z that we had planned for Milestone 6 instead." "Ok, great!"
happens often. Even though the publisher is not obligated to accept these sorts of modifications, if there is sufficient trust between the publisher and developer, it is not a big problem.
Larger delay/scope questions are also common but have more significant consequences. Extending development by X months, especially late in the project, inflates the development cost (ie you are adding that time at peak burn rate). What was once a business case built around recouping $X cost is now one to recoup 1.5 * $X, for example
Does the math still work for the publisher? For the developer whose original contract might have had them earning royalties once the publisher has recouped + X%? A lot of independent developers don't have a lot of runway, especially at peak production, which gives publishers a lot of leverage when renegotiating terms.
I could imagine a scenario where, while there was a mutual desire to extend the development time to hit quality/scope, the publisher wanted more favorable royalty terms in exchange for more development budget. Alternatively, the developer might have wanted royalties on a more aggressive sliding scale (earning some low % from unit one instead of only after recoup) in order to help tide them over. Usually these sorts of things end in compromises; they clearly did not in this case. I'd love to know what led to that because as reported Take Two does not come out in a favorable light.