As the OP has said, there is no guarantee the project will be successful when they do KYC, investors do KYC to qualify for trading and they are not part of a country that is prohibited by crypto regulations, like USA, crypto users from America are not can invest in crypto due to the regulations set by the government.
KYC is done by investors to gain access to exchanges or IEOs, it is done to avoid money laundering and I think that's good, but for new projects, I still have doubts about new projects that have done KYC, because the goal of KYC is not for project success.