I don't think that is Kickstarter's fault -- the fact is that building stuff (particularly real, physical stuff) is hard.
But Kickstarter could certainly be more transparent. They (and their crowdfunders) intentionally foster the idea that consumers are just pre-ordering real products. There isn't any large disclaimer that says, "Hey, your money might just be going down a toilet! Do your homework and make sure these people are legit!!" Kickstarter wants to (and does) feel like Amazon of the future, which is cool until you realize you're buying a future that will never exist.
In the end, it's really Kickstarter that suffers the most. I'd be willing to bet that having fewer projects (through vetting, curation, or whatever) with higher consumer trust would be more profitable in the long run.
If they set a low but reasonable goal and achieve it, it is ostensibly a positive signal that a market exists for whatever niche product they are building.
While the capital acquired through is almost always not sufficient to fulfil the orders, investment helps to.
This model fails when investment dries up and the second part of the plan does not work out.
This is probably what happened to gest. They had most certainly had a working prototype and were definitely not vaporware in the true sense of the word.
It could be that the only way to create a market for such a product is through an inferior product and less creative founders who have had successful exits in the past and can self fund.