"I wonder if it would be fair to suggest that the journal article didn't get published until now, because they only recently raised enough to pay for the authoring/publishing cost?"

Well that certainly resonates with the prevailing tone of the board at this moment.  But, it seems more likely to me that the publication of the journal article was timed to coincide with the late breaking presentation at NKF  - that never took place.  The NKF embargoe was to be lifted on Friday morning, same time the journal article was published.