EDIT; I wrote this about 2 weeks ago, just walked away from completing it 100% and just added the begining few sentences today, not great timing on my part....
With Natash Rios over at Gonzo, and Cris Bathory over at Gio, G-Lab specifically (which is odd to me, cuz she's a PROVEN commodity beyond reproach). But anyway I know we'll never hear anything "official" in form of a statement or "press release" of sorts. Or even from the "higher up's" here on the forum, to expect any different is foolish at best.
So maybe DAP-A has some back channel gossip he could or would like to share. Or anyone really that has any sort of intelligible info/rumors to add. Not just some random feeling on the situation, Something not just made up in your head, need some way to connect the dots that you put out there for us....
I'll just say, and I say this as MY OWN feelings & opinions; To me Luis has come off as an unmotivated borderline lazy director/worker/boss/artist/ect.... Not reliable for extended, well not even really extended, just a few months in a row over and over again. This was accentuated by (as I understood the situation) the fact that he was financially backed by "corporate", which in turn caused lazy/bad habits and ZERO growth as a director/artist. XXX doesn't give a shit about the product as long as his herd of sheepeople keep spending on blind faith.... So as long as money was coming in there would be no issues, no reason to break bad habits or figure ways to better the product.
Regarding the on-off-on-off nature of working/production, it never would be bothersome to XXX as long as when Luis was off, there were still releases to put out. I mean hell, no overhead on those days, just income/sales. What owner/money man wouldn't like that....
Fast forward..... Luis is gone from Gonzo. Did he leave on his own (quit)? Get told to leave (fired)? I Don't know, or at least don't remember. But I do know just from being here for over a decade now, I know that we were never told anything official on the subject, that's for sure....
So now Luis is in South America, I mean it was an obvious choice on his part. He would go on holiday there for weeks/months at a time. Sometimes for "work", sometimes he'd "work" while there. So there was already an existing "pipeline" for talent recruitment, and we all know there is ABSOLUTELY an abundance of willing top-shelf talent in South America.
Maybe there was a silent/invisible partner who was the money behind the scenes. But that's not what I had believed. I think/thought it was all on him. As "just an employee" with a front row seat to seeing all your hard work, and feeling it's you doing ALL the work, but ONLY receiving a paycheck. Watching someone else get all the riches/profits from your work, simply cuz they're the money...
Yummy was not at all what we last remember they were when it first started. It's was quite shaky ground it seemed. Lower level or unproven talent, really sub-par lighting and audio, ect.... It took some time for them to hit they're stride, and to me peaked in their last 4-6 months before disappearing on us. But even then it was still very much hit or miss from release to release. Horrible lighting, or 9 minutes of a scene of nothing but fumbled DAP insertions. We all know (yummy fans at least) which one I'm speaking of. Female on back legs out wide on the sofa cushions, males trying to insert side by side while on knees between her legs. The worst position by far to me.
But to conclude this ramble I'll circle back to Luis time with Gonzo. Being unmotivated/lazy/too set in his ways/complacent, BUT now also the money man is a formula for disaster/failure. Too many misses not enough big hits, and you'll most likely go under. That along with all the rumblings of studio sabatoge from ownership and/or the re-working of how the payments are handled / purchasing of scenes by XXX from studios and it was only inevitable that Yummy was not going to last forever or long at all really.....
And in more that one way, this situation in particular is just a microcosm of this place as & on the whole (hehe "in the hole", get it....)
*DISCLAIMER* All these statement are NOT FACT, this is just my read on things, or how I remember it/remember feeling at the time.