"That said, Kickstarter is a gamble. Yes, you won’t cough up your money unless everyone else does too, but even when things are funded, there is no guarantee that the project will succeed, if the project will ship anywhere close to on time, that the project creator won’t turn you off before the product ships or if what ships at the end is what you thought it would be."

Isn't that the risk that any angel investor takes? Kickstarter is basically a micro-angel investor fund.