with only 2 very busy programmers, a break for winter (they have families too yah know), and a great deal of other top-secret work on their desks?
I think not.
I don't see this being such a difficult thing to implement. If you have huge tasks ahead but also small problems it's easier and more efficient to fix the small problems first. With all of those out of the way you can focus 100% on the "big thing" with some small time loss instead of focusing 100% on "the big thing" and have lots of small problems/bugs that will haunt the game for months as they work on their "big thing".
Invalid argument my friend,
Holidays aside though I hope this is fixed after new years.