That was a fair criticism. Once the team was waiting for new contracts, buying more speed didn’t help much.
In v1.2’s new M&A path, Sales unlocks Marketing at level 4 to bring in contracts more frequently, and Design unlocks higher-value contracts at level 4. The aim is to make further upgrades change what your company can do, not just make the progress bars faster.
With your existing save, you can choose to transfer to this path on the upgrade screen after an IPO. The preview explains what happens to your assets and that the transfer replaces the legacy Shares/IPO route—there’s no need to manually reset your save.
Thanks for pointing this out!