Unfortunately, the exchange rate for converting slivers of dev time into hardware is... Unfavorable. And up until two days ago[0], Stack Overflow was running on fumes - shedding staff, perks, equipment to keep the ship afloat. I know of folks who spent months scrambling to get new servers before the old ones died, and... Didn't quite make it.
Given the situation, investing time into making do probably seemed like a much better bet than hoping for a windfall with which to buy equipment.