When the news broke, I spoke with several CD Projekt Red developers who confirmed they didn't know about the delay until they received an internal email shortly before the announcement went live on Twitter. When that knowledge became public, the online backlash was almost instantaneous, sparking criticism of the studio's internal communication practices and how messages are conveyed to the community. Since then, I've spoken to several more CD Projekt Red developers on both the Polish and U.S. sides; according to them, the news was shocking, but not for the reasons people are assuming.
According to three developers, the decision to delay was a swift one after looking at the quality differences between the current-gen and next-gen versions. CD Projekt Red has said that it wants the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 to be perfect, so any perceived flaws are addressed quickly. According to the team, the decision to delay was not even discussed until Monday (October 26), with a decision being reached on Tuesday (October 27). According to Polish labor laws, leadership was not legally allowed to tell the whole team, due to its size of over 1,000 employees, without each individual signing a non-disclosure agreement. To do so would be considered, in terms of relation to stock equity and insider trading, as "leaked insider information."
Speaking with a representative from CD Projekt Red, they confirmed to Game Informer that the Polish law is the reason behind the team at large not knowing about the delay until the day of, in addition to that being a decision just recently made. While this is a standard for many studios outside of the U.S., usually U.S.-based studios have more of a notice regarding events such as a delay.