It was obvious from early on that these particular developers lacked the seniority and experience in their field to handle something like this.
Your account is from 2013. Can you show some of your posts where you pointed this out early on? "In hindsight" is too late.
when doing business with millions, the safe solution would be to hire an experienced firm
I don't think the original intention was to spend millions of dollars on Epochtalk.
There have been ample of criticisms through the years. Because yes, indeed, the initial intention was to spend a million dollars on Epochtalk, with a $100k monthly budget.
For a blast for the past, this nice thread is quite indicative of how shocked everyone was back then to learn that the project has been just 50% over $1m.