Oh yes the components that is the most interesting part! Adding a general AI to a new type of character with one line of code and fine-tuning it through some properties really sounds compelling, especially since you can do it by editing an .ini file, and not touching the code itself.
Today I had to roll through all the functions in all the classes about entities because of a small additional feature. This is annoying somewhat.
So it takes longer to build? I was expecting to be faster, actually, but I can see your point. Making really useful - and general - components might take more time, but probably in the end you'll have a collection of proven pieces of code that you can re-use.
No problem that it's closed source, of course. Everybody tries to make ends meet somehow.
Then I'll try to follow the development and catch some bits about how this data-driven and component-based design works.
Oh, and it really sux under Wine. It crashes all the time, so you might re-consider making a linux version. (I'm just kidding, it was all right.
But come on, we Linux guys deserve games like this! We usually pay more in average than any Mac/Windows user anyway, see the results of any Humble Inide Bundle!)