What's also not clear to me, is why the IPO ended a long time before the release? If you want to go the way of IPO, make it so it at least seems fair. I'd suggest go completely other way - as suggested, rewards for running nodes etc., maybe just partial IPO to fund the development, but this seems like an interesting project that will probably end up hated the same way as Nxt (probably even more since you had the option to avoid it).
The dev extended the IPO to allow more people to sign up. I think it was something like two extra weeks from the date originally specified. Nxt cut short the IPO deadline, which is the opposite of Qora.