Actually it IS Funcom to blame for this.
If you want your customers to play your game, you have to make sure your game runs on current available hardware, not the other way around.
The way FC is acting now they will be running behind further and further every day.
They want to do things right? They have to push out the engine so it is compatible (again?) with newer hardware, but to be honest I don't see that happening before the game gets shut down.
But people still keep playing, and paying, and finding their own way to run AO on their system, so there is NO incentive for FC AT ALL in any way to speed up the development on ANY part of AO.
Simply because people are still paying even when FC is /mooning and laughing at them.