Kickstarter is very much "just" a system for people to use. From my own experience with backing projects I back projects from people with pedigree and some sort of proven value. Anyone can promise something but when I'm backing a project I want someone I know can deliver, especially when Kickstarter provides no assurances or guarantees a project will be made, you're relying entirely on the project creator to be honest and stick to what they say they will do. If I found a project via browsing the Kickstarter website and there wasn't some sort of outside influence driving the funding of the project (be it the project creators twitter followers, a group of people that are interested in the same field and have worked with the project creator, a previous product the creator has produced) I would shy away because if this is a persons first project they are inevitably going to be issues.
I don't think that's a fair characterization. No one forced the hands of those backers. I hadn't heard of the project until you linked to it, but having read through the updates it's evident that Schuyler was totally forthcoming about his lack of experience in this area. Any backer slightly less skeptical than yourself who said "I'll give this guy a shot" was completely entitled to withdraw their pledge if they felt he was getting in over his head as the total amount pledged ballooned to over 15x his specified threshold. He's posted nearly 70 updates since launching the project, and it would appear that despite the delays it is coming to fruition. It's not as if he fleeced his backers for $90k and skipped town.
Here's an example of a guy who walked away with $90k and didn't deliver anything but broken promises for over a year and only recently gone back and worked on the project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schuyler/lockpicks-by-op...