At least they are starting to pay. Some even don't care. I am not taking their side but I think its best to wait and see. I will ask Decoded about the status of this.
As I understand the project owner keeps on saying that they are paying participants but actually there is no payment done. I also check the participants address in random but there is no JOOS payment sent to their address. It seems the management keeps on lying about sending payment and deleted anyone who confirm that there is no payment done.
I think this should be raised on the scam accusation board. With regards to bounty manager, I believe he had done his task of managing the bounty and calculating stakes and don't have anything to do with the distribution. They are like you, they are just hired to a specific task and they have no power with regards to token distribution . It is also possible that this bounty manager is not yet paid too.
IMO it should have been professionally handled by making a proper announcement about reason for delay instead of deleting posts.
It should be but I believe these people are trying to scam the bounty participants. I have seen several tactics like this and most of them stand firm on not paying.