Unless I'm mistaken, Apple has just removed the "unforseen issues; we can't ship" excuse that might have gotten Kickstarter to refund its fees. At this point they can 1) just keep on with the existing Kickstarter project or 2) suck up Kickstarter's fees and jerk potential customers around just to re-crowdsource?

I don't see how #2 helps anyone.

It may not have - from the article, they are still not sure if they'd be allowed to put the Lightning/30 pin connector in a device with a normal USB charger.