Most of XoR’s design decisions boil down to “I wrote what I like to read.” That ended up being a story that at almost every point either offers space to explore or is rolling out consequences linked in some detail to your earlier decisions. It ended up coding-inefficient, following story threads I found interesting into sections that few readers will ever see (even for the bits that have achievements pointing the way – and not all of them do). It ended up being, well, LOOOONG.
Rebels would I think have to gross close to $200,000 before I made California minimum wage for the time I put into it. There’s simply no business justification for writing a game like this. It’s a game I wrote (and am writing) first and last for the creative pleasure of it. And of course, it still attracts the “Why can’t it be FREEEEEEEE???” one-star reviews. 
I recognize I’m contributing to the problem of expectation inflation that Jason memorably mentioned to Cataphrak three and a half years ago:
and for that I feel kind of bad. But I have good company in Choice of the Cat and Tally Ho! at least. 