I don't know why anyone is surprised. All of the court watchers who aren't MAGA told us SCOTUS would sit on this as long as they possibly could. Which, assuming they're still coloring inside the rules, means the last ruling of the season. And they'll drag out all the other cases too so it doesn't look weird. In fact on Strict Scrutiny they've been warning that the court is dropping a bunch of no contest decisions because they're expecting one big drop with shitty partisan decisions that have no logic beyond the personal politics of the majority.
That was part of the game though. If any part of that process was sped up for him the Republicans would have ammo in their accusations about the trial. And rich people have long made sure the justice system goes slowly.
Part of "the game" is to make sure that the trial would start far too late for it to end before the elections... To make sure that Trump can get elected before the ruling is over... And then give himself immunity?
Yes, but it's important to remember that there are multiple players in this game. The Democrats and the prosecutors want the trial done before then but they can't be seen to be speeding it up or even to be impatient. This gives the defense and the Republicans plenty of opening to show the trial down.
This was entirely predictable. There was no reason for the Democrats to wait so long to start the process. They wanted to make sure Trump could run for the Republicans so they can keep fearmongering everyone into voting for Biden.
They did start the process very early though. The problem is there's a whole thing before bringing charges that they had to go through. They aren't skipping any step because that could be grounds for an appeal. Even before officially opening an investigation they had to make sure they had the grounds to do that. So there was an investigation before the investigation, likely trying to get something less ephemeral than speech=riot; like direct ties to fake electors. Then they can start the official investigation where they get people on the record in meetings with the FBI. Finally when that's gone far enough they can get a grand jury to look at everything. Then finally they can charge Trump and start preparing for a trial.
In both of the investigative phases anyone partial to Trump can slow them down by rescheduling repeatedly and lying to investigators. (Which has already resulted in charges for some of them because it's much easier to prove.) Then the grand jury doesn't usually meet every day, in fact they may only meet once a week.
Taking two years to figure out there was a connection, and another year to gather enough evidence for a grand jury isn't unusual. Especially in cases involving rich and influential people.
Look at the lib escalate into a spiraling web of complexity in order to justify failure. No, the timeline here was unreasonable and will allow trump to win again. The Dems have served up a silver platter to the wealthy.