It was actually the appropriate scope for an mvp, it was just an unreasonable time frame to make a solid codebase for anything other than a demo for the complexity of the project. That's fine for a genuine proof of concept/rapid prototype you're going to be disciplined enough to trash, but letting that slip into the role of your core codebase is like pouring a sloppy scaled-down concrete foundation as a test for a house, and then trying to just expand it into what you need.