A couple of things:
1) Clayton sold the business to friends/colleagues. I highly doubt that, several weeks after the sale, he’s violated the terms of the agreement. Rather, I suspect he has the blessing of Spatial to pursue the lower end of the OB market. His new speaker is half the price of the Q6. Plus, Clayton is a good-meaning guy who has had a spate of bad luck. Doing something he shouldn’t seems out of character.
2) I disagree that buying from small companies, we should expect to be left holding the bag down the road. By most industry standards, the vast majority of audio manufacturers ARE small businesses, including the ones that have been around for decades, like Vandersteen and Magnepan. Even Pass Labs is a small company. It uses exotic transistors in some designs, some of which are out of production. BUT, they have a huge inventory of spares if needed. If audiophiles avoided “small” companies, there wouldn’t be a high end market.