I am assuming that both you and the previous poster are referring to itch.io's devlog feature? I do agree with you on all of the above, in any case. Seeing as this appears to be a pattern, I decided to test out the feature on a currently relevant ttrpg project - which is to say I composed and published a devlog for the game in question. In my case, however, the post became active instantly, as far as I can tell, and no manual review or moderation process seems to have been triggered at all. It worked as it really ought to. Being a blog post within the bounds of my own account, and pertaining to my own game, there is, as you've noted, no reason why I shouldn't be able to draft it up, press "post" and have it appear.
Given the difference in our experiences, I suspect (though, of course, I cannot be certain) that there is a secondary factor / extra step in play. Maybe there's an automated filter that's picking up on certain keywords and flagging your posts based on that alone? I am not a fan of how itch.io leadership handled the recent "adult content" fiasco (the communication and transparency simply weren't there, and no matter how small you are, when many people's livelihoods are in your hands, there is an inherent responsibility that they failed to rise to), it is undeniable that they found themselves between a rock and a hard place and were probably rather badly spooked by the whole ordeal. Who knows ... this may have led to weird, automated moderation measures as a sort of emergency stop-gap. This is all speculation, of course, but I wouldn't be too surprised to find that they've designated certain terms, even potentially innocuous ones, to trigger a review to cover their butts ...
It is, however, still very strange that this would affect devlog posts, of all things ... Of course, if you are referring to a wholly different blogging feature that I'm not even aware of, all of the above essentially goes out the window.