Where what we really needed was a stable release version (now a year late from the original promised date) so we can build out UI components for the content editors to use that don't require constant design tweaks.

You know the designers are:

a) Just fucking around having fun

b) Making busy work to drag it out as long as possible

As it's now 4 years since they began working on the "design system", there's a good chance it will get canned as there's some more modern design they will want to use.