The length of an attraction's or park's construction definitely isn't meaningless, especially with regards to delays. By that point everyone knows something is coming, it can potentially affect other areas of the park, and it's just not something we want to sit around and wait forever to finish. With regards to an attraction's design phase, I think the length of that is typically a lot more meaningless in the sense that you can still be putting out other new attractions no matter how long it takes you to nail down a particular one. In most cases, just opening something new every year or two is more important than finishing up the design of a specific project that hasn't even been announced. Park geeks like us are the only ones who may even have an inkling that said project even exists. No one else will know or care.
It's not surprising that a clone had a short design phase. The construction phase was still inexcusable.