Just to dovetail this, I cannot recall AP being used in the hobby online as someone who came into the online space via FidoNet and other FTS-001 based networks and USENET starting in roughly 1990. There were other networks, and I wasn't in the APA scene much..
I won't argue any of the timeline complaints. It was catestrophically awful on pretty much all levels. Some of the reasons are understandable (multiple hospitalizations, an artist skips out with a lot of undelivered work), while others are completely WTF (completely changing the game engine?) to...
Look. This thing has enough baggage without this kinda dishonesty.
Digital and physical arrived. Distribution too.
12 years ago it was Kickstarter, not a glorified preorder system and all the intellectual dishonesty around this is childish.