The Ertheias were thought up by NCKorea's in-house developers (as opposed to the outsourced coders) before Lindvior, but then it was considered more important to first bring back what made Lineage 2 special, i.e. the class diversification put the new race on hold: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=101322&site=lineage2
(above the second picture)
So with the Ertheias the developers were benefitting from work that had been done more than a year ago. When it comes to working right now, in March 2014, the situation is different. Here is the preview page for the next update: http://lineage2.plaync.com/promotion/l2lasico/season1/ceremony
What you actually see there is not even concept art, but screenshots from the current version with typed-in explanations what will change. In other words, they are operating in minimum frame mode.
When those 20 developers have a minute or two between the more urgent (because more profitable) Korean bug fixes, they will devote a bit of thought to issues like the in-game mail system. That specific problem has actually been solved already; at Innova.eu it works fine since a week or two. But somehow the esteemed Ms. Choi, who personifies Lineage 2 Overseas Development (리니지2 해외브랜치개발) has not yet gotten around to incorporating that specific piece of code into the patches she sends to Orange County. It's everybody's guess why this is so.
Hint: http://de.eonline.com/news/369491/psy-s-anti-american-past-uncovered-gangnam-style-rapper-said-kill-those-f-king-yankees
So basically I was not as far from the truth as Tiferet pointed me out to have been. I really wish I was, though. I really wish to have received a reply with some sort of article that showed us what a glorious bright future with awesome new content this game has. But instead we have Yidao's links--thanks for those, my friend, your posts are always very interesting to read--links which show us d.a.mn caricatures and a few well-cropped in-game screenshots.
27 developers do exist. You can see them all at 3:06 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crDliF-LbY8
In a way they care for the game - after all, that's how they pay their rent. The problem is that they are burnt out. 27 people have to do the job that two years ago was done by 100 people. This kind of "streamlining" never works. Through the downsizing in December 2012 NCsoft could increase their operating income aka EBIT by 36%, but such things always and inevitably lead to a reduction in service quality, i.e. sooner or later to a reduction in the gross revenue. This is common knowledge, also among the Nexon management (the current owners of NCsoft (http://boards.rochand.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=407&p=11803#p11803)). So those who say that the operations are being deliberately wound down are not completely wrong. Nevertheless, fact is that the developers are working on the next update. More information will be published on April 16.
As far as the Western community is concerned, it always depends on whom you have at the other end of your e-mail in Seoul. Korea is a multicultural society, and among Christians americophilia is a widespread phenomenon. But 70% of the South Korean population are non-Christians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Korea#Religion_in_South_Korea) who often intensely dislike the USA. This means the chance for an NCWest bug to get fixed is about as high as getting a mage weapon from +3 to +4 :D