Both things can be true at the same time, its not black and white, it is true that the progression was criminally slow before, but all of a sudden making it lightspeed does not solve the issue.It is funny. Before this update people were complaining the progress was too slow and get to IRL stuff already. Now it is Asuna is changing too fast and inconsistent.
This is a game so it has to be fun. Slow consistent progress would just mean people getting bored with how little people's attention span are. Also this is a source of income for Fujino. If his supporters want faster pace then that is what he has to give them. If Fujino didn't depend on this as a source of income then maybe we would get a more consistent plot but that is not Fujino's situation. Also there are technical limitations of event slots being filled up. Once those slots are filled no other events can be used.
So there are real life situations forcing Fujino to change his approach and plot progression.
The game is still very good but its biggest issue is the pacing, had the pacing been more even through out the game, Im sure it would have turned out a lot better.