Or... and work with me here... they're not "taking longer to work on them", they've actually done no work on them at all and are going to get to them when they can be bothered. And when they finally get to them after ensuring mages etc are happy, there's no guarantee they will work long or hard on them - for all we know (and are used to) they'll just remove a few more things, recolour some things and call it done. All that is just as plausible as your assertion they're working hard on them.