Here's a bit of a timeline for the Abort cap and a few observations thrown in for fun.
Nov 2015, Arc (Good ol' Arc, warps everytthing it touches.) is introduced. RQs and CF are already in the game. Arc powering CF = unlimited RQ payoffs.
2016 - Glarg and Cosmic Raven demonstrate the power of RQs in their seminal Guides 'Get your first two great buildings in less then a month" and "Cosmic Ravens Version of Heavy Questing".
Dec 2017 - Random poster (me) mentions infinite Chateau in a random thread. That's the earliest mention of infinite Chateau I can find on the forum, but I'm sure I didn't invent the idea. I believe some poster put out a list of what the infinite Chateau level was for each Era sometime before I made this post in Dec 2017:
"Arc accelerates obtaining the 'infinite Chateau' level. Pre Arc it would be a matter of years except for a very few players. Now any player can do it and in a relatively short time. And as more powered Arcs and infinite Chateaus enter the game the process of players acquiring infinite Chateaues will accelerate."
Forum discussion of infinite Chateau picked up in 2019 as ever more powered Arcs powered more CFs with the process accelerating with continued SB Power creep and later GBG Rewards fueling ever more growth.
Apr 2020 - SAAB with new RQs is introduced.
The Fighting RQ seems like a pretty easy RQ for any top end player to do over and over and the results show that players take advantage of it. RPs and battles of top ranked players triple and quadruple over the next year.
The stage was set, the props were all at hand, the actors were taking there places. Let the play commence.
Mar 3, 2021 - Update 1.199 introduces the Abort delay bug.
Note well! There is no mention in the original Update Announcement about any fix having anything to do with RQs, yet somehow an Abort delay is introduced.
Mar 5, 2021 - Clarification Announcement about the Abort delay bug.
This Announcement was posted in a different subforum then most and added ex post facto to the Update Announcement of 1.199. This Announcement was made with a seldom used INNO forum account.
The unannounced change to the game, the smoking gun, is in the second paragraph, 'This week, we moved forward with an update that sets a limit on Quest Aborts '.
Despite trying, the Abort Cap did not go live, bit they did manage to add the Abort delay bug.
Mar 17, 2021 - Update Announcement 1.200
The second entry under bug fixes. Maybe? This is the Abort Cap? Maybe something else?
We have no official word that this exploit was part of the reason for the Abort cap, just a post from Agent (post 172) in this thread saying it was related.
This might be important. Agent's assertion the two Announcements are related changed the whole dynamic of this discussion and if it is not official then leaves even more speculations.
The Abort cap was still not live at this point.
Apr 8, 2021 - This thread is created. this is the first mention on this forum of the number 2000 and the first indication the Abort Cap is live in game.
Does anyone know when the Abort cap actually went live? Or do we just assume it was Apr 8?
None of the Update Announcements around this period mention the Abort cap explicitly nor were any Updates timed for April 8.
Apr 15, 2021 - SAV introduced.
Today - It's been 10 weeks since INNO first tried to sneak in the Abort cap and 6 weeks since INNO did sneak it in and stiil no official clarification of what us going on. Just 1 hasty Announcement and maybe one possible allusion in another Announcement.
----------
Anyway, that is the timeline of how we got where we are today.
Let me know of any mistakes or omissions and I'll fix them.
A lot of messy confusion and speculation because INNO decided sneaking in a change to an existing feature in the game was a good idea.