Your criticism has some merit if they had to pay a penalty/fee...

Your criticism has some merit if they had to pay a penalty/fee for the extension. Was the 2200000 shares issued an extra penalty or just issued for interest due pursuant to the loan in any event? The announcement from December isn't clear.

in any event it is not a huge price to pay to give themselves optionality around the timing of the raising (if in fact they knew they were then). Ie. it let them choose the timing of the raising rather than being forced into an emergency raising as the debt repayment date neared and the share price potentially tanked in expectation of a forced raising.

Having raised the money the payment of the Track loan wasn't just moot, it was obviously the thing to do.