Chia’s consensus mechanism, while probably the cleverest of non-PoW mechanisms (their white paper explains why most Proof-of-Whatever mechanisms besides proof-of-work are broken), is pretty sketchy. Their reliance on “time lords” seems to be pushing a lot of the consensus mechanism towards hyper-centralization. It’s complicated enough that I can’t spot exactly what the weak point is, but that in itself is pretty concerning.
I don't think there are any rewards for running Time Lords or any vulnerabilities inherent in them. Chia relies on VDFs and I think its just "altruistic" to run a Time Lord. I think Chia Inc. does and will continue to run most of them.
Chia is pretty complicated but I'm not sure its much more complicated than other cryptocurrencies. The complexity seems pretty inherent in them.
