i do wish that these companies would learn that silence is a really poor way to handle problems though. clear and candid communication with the player base would do wonders for my opinion of them, as a company.
Amen. Tell us what you're working on, by when you plan to have it released, why you couldn't release it by the timeline you gave us, where you would like for us to send crash or bug information, et cetera, et cetera.
Communicating with your customer base doesn't necessarily open you up to having to deal with trolls and whiners, if you do it correctly.
And it wins you a lot of good will and product quality/testing/usability information.