Kickstart is more than just a BIOS like a PC. It does actually contain a lot of required functionality for even Workbench (albeit low level stuff) so it would have been nuts to ship with KS 1.0 on ROM for such an expensive computer. It's not like it takes long to load Kickstart and you never need to load it again IME unless you power off the machines. Great machines for ripping MODS/graphics with tools BTW.
KS 1.3 to 2.0 took forever to develop but we had 3 revisions between A1000 and A500/2000 launches ie 18 months.
I also remember that it's quite famous when C= execs visited the original Amiga OS developer they found him a little crazy (holed up in his room talking frequently to his rabbit in the cage specifically) and I think that helped them to go with Dr Tim King's TriPOS reworking for Amiga OCS/architecture for Kickstart/Workbench as we know it today. Hard to have confidence in the black art of OS software/firmware in that sort of environment.
