I've had the unfortunate pleasure of reading them 3 times (that's about as much as I could stomach a full go around) in the last 8 years. It's not that I don't understand the themes or what they're trying to say; I even understand Hussie's interview and how the epilogues are meant to be a double edged sword where wanting more story inevitably means desiring more conflict for these heroes.

But to that end, my eternal answer is: People were asking for a conclusion by Act 7. They wanted the answers to some of the comic's big mysteries, like who provided Jade her last frog and how Caliborn wound up getting the Ring of Void. I don't think there was a big outcry for a sequel or an open ending for "potentially more story".

The epilogues function with the idea of a strawman fan IMO.

Additionally, as I realized above, a reason they've been so heart-aching to consume is because since their release, there hasn't really been a moment of joy or relief for these characters, who even at their worst in Homestuck still had glimmers of joy and hope or the resolution to the pain came quicker than 9+ years of real world time.

I cannot imagine being satisfied if the Alpha Kid trickster fall out, or Terezi's Gamzee based depression or Game Over or Dave and Dirk's confrontation was dragged out for this long IRL, and I know it's not the fault of the writers because there's been several real world reasons why the story has been so delayed.

We finally got to the end of Act 1 in Beyond Canon, but it doesn't really feel like catharsis or a resolution, it feels like the first step to setting it all up for a conflict which began 9 years ago from our POV. And they've since only continued to ADD to that conflict.

As an aside, just to muse, (pun not intended given her class) but Calliope now being posited as the author of Candy leaves me very unsure with how to feel about her character in Meat. The implication of her responsibility for the real consequences a character like Jake experienced at the hands of the story she penned has monstrous implications that I don't know if the story will ever address. How do you even begin to extrapolate on that in any kind of satisfying way? Especially with Tavvy becoming real.