I don't think the goal of the whitepaper is only to prepare an ICO nor any kind of fundraising, IMO it can be used to give a better understanding of the whole model of your business/project for anyone who wants to involved in it. Although you don't even gonna publish an ICO I think it's still important to have a whitepaper since most people don't easily put their money into an unknown business/project.
For me it's strange a project that did not have a whitepaper, because in whitepaper everything is explain deitaled. but he seems didn't care, even he already make a new step in this forum by hold some campaign on this forum.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5290918.0 Every individual has their own opinions on it and yes you can call it a strange one. But for me, it's something like the project doesn't have a strong foundation, just offering nonsense.
Since BFT tokens already tradeable on some various exchanges I guess most hunters would ignoring the legitimacy of the project and grab it as much as they can.