Doing all of those things on your own and in a way where it won't crash every computer in existence, it would take patience, and a long time. Though, individual aspects wouldn't take certain aspects as long if the person is skilled enough.
I've said something similar to this before: it all depends on the skill of the person, as well as the dedication they have to the project. Give me enough reference photos: some of side profiles, some of skeletons, at several different angles, and I can make just about anything in less than a week if I really wanted to do it.
It takes a lot of patience to actually make a model, animate it, and program it into a game with features. I'm not surprised Kov's gone all "apathetic" about it here, with all the freaking drama this game has had (and probably still does, I know I don't go on anymore). I used to have a ton of models just rotting away in my computer (many of them unfinished projects), that I got tired of doing or lost interest and decided to get rid of because I didn't feel it was worth the time.
Whether Kov makes the patches 'avidly' (if that word has the definition I think it has, of course) or 'grudgingly' doesn't matter though, at least in my opinion. As long as he makes some sort of showing that he's AWARE of the game, be it long-taking, I don't really care. It at least shows that he knows we're still here. XD
Personally though, I think it's his apathy. If I were in charge of a game, I'd at least TRY to talk to the people, whether I still took interest in the game or not, but that's just me. Either that or it's my utter hatred for FB (I've never liked social websites like that, really, as talkative as I am on forums).
