I don't know, they had several well defined constraints and you don't know what a library is doing under the covers without spending some time with it. A proof of concept engine exploration is different than an app with 100,000 simultaneous users. I wonder how many business days they spent on this thing.
Like you said, it was a one-time project that wasn't incredibly complex and just needed a one time deployment. And they had UI guys who generally knew what they wanted to and how to do it. I think it would probably have taken them more time to research suitable engines they could rely on than to build the functionality themselves (or use whatever libraries they were already very familiar with.) All engines/libraries end up having quirks that you really only learn through experience.
As far as this discussion goes, I think that code is documentation. If you need to figure out how something works, going directly to the automation code will give you the right answer. If the code is difficult to understand, that's more of a quality issue, and the same problem happens with word documents.
Just to be clear, the $5 is a one time charge to be able submit extensions to their store, not a charge for users to download extensions. I think it's a good solution to help keep pure garbage from being uploaded... if you upload something, you think it's worth $5 (hopefully a trivial sum to you.) If you don't want to pay the fee, you can tell people to download your extension from your own page and manually install it. Uploading it to the store just helps people discover your extension and makes installing the extension a one click thing.
I feel like it would be easier to find staff that knows or is interested in using AWS over GCE, and that can be more important than $X extra dollars a month. Sometimes, the right solution is the most practical solution, not the most optimized solution. Once AWS becomes a problem, you're probably well off enough to look into other solutions. But I'd think you could just tweak your set-up.
I don't think he was commenting on the non-funded company nature making it a 'life-style business', but on the OP comment that he didn't want to be busier as a result of funding.