I have to imagine they're putting in this work either because it'll help them figure out optimization (game's running on UE3, same as all of their stuff for the past few years) for PS4/PSPRO which would assist with upcoming projects [remember how Monolith made a PS Pro patch for ME: Shadow of Mordor? Likely similar motives here of just getting used to the hardware and the dev pipeline/tools needed].
OR
This game could be going F2P completely as Gearbox prepares one final push to make this game work. I'll go ahead and assume 2K gives them a long leash, but the failure of a new IP like this won't garner any support for future non-Borderlands endeavors if I had to wager a guess.
While I don't care for this game, and am not a big fan of Randy Pitchford (People can say "oh, cause of the Aliens:CM stuff??" but even besides that, dude's a compulsive liar, and I don't like that personality trait AT ALL), it's only beneficial for anyone who cares for this game, and if you don't, I wouldn't imagine this is delaying Borderlands 3 or whatever future project, so no reason to be overly critical of it.