[UncleOxidant]

Having worked in the industry a bit, yes, likely both are true. There are very complex engineering problems to solve and Makani was taking one of the more complicated approaches to the problem. Some other kite power companies (including the one I worked at) have the generator on the ground and use an ascending figure 8 pattern of flight to pull the tether thus generating power (at the top of the cycle the kite goes into a sort of controlled stall to lose altitude, the tether is rewound and the cycle continues) - that approach certainly has issues as well.

I often think that maybe most of us were taking a much more complicated approach than is actually needed. Perhaps (thinking out loud) something much simpler like a soft kite with a sort of trap-door which closes as it ascends and opens to let it fall to a lower altitude would be a much simpler approach - essentially a bag kite with an end that can be opened and closed - obviously it would be smaller scale, but most of the kite power companies are working at a much smaller scale than Makani was.