Nice analogy!

It sounds like the way that KQ has it set up does allow for some amount of idea generation by the patrons - the lowest tier folks just get to vote on the ideas for what goes in, but the higher dollar folks actually get to put their ideas into the votes.

And, actually, it would be very possible to do the vanity work at any stage along the way. If you're letting your big money patrons playtest the material during development, they're obviously going to have characters that fit the material. From there, it's a very small step to inject them into the official version.