He does seem like a nice guy and don't forget he's just using the power of distributed computing to get a scientific interest done faster then would normally be possible (and maybe create some interest in the subject).

It isn't a big project and if you find something interesting of course you're going to carry it on (that and maybe he persuaded the powers above to keep it going longer).
Why shouldn't he continue it just to please some people who want to stay higher up the points chart (it's not a game to him, but a scientific interest, aka his job/bsc/msc/phd/etc...)

(Though an automatic updating porgram would be a LOT better...)