You're fine. They're fair questions to ask. I don't consider them that spoilery, myself, since I'm planning on making some sort of guide anyway since I feel like it sounds more complicated than it actually is.
Yes, this set-up does mean that nothing blatantly romantic will be happening until the very end. Romance has never been the point of this game, it's always been meant as a bonus. I understand this is odd for a VN, and perhaps I should be more clear about that in the game's information so that players aren't disappointed if they were expecting more of a dating sim. One of my personal goals for writing this story was to practice writing the development of friendships, and so that's what the core of this story is--the tale of four people learning to get along and be friends.
If you're concerned that this means the romance will be shoe-horned in right at the end, it may help to know that the Set 2 Endings are a sort of epilogue with a beginning, middle, and end all their own, and are about 9000-10,000 words a piece to give the blossom of a romantic relationship some believability.
To get a romantic ending, a character late in the game will ask Makani whether or not she is in love, and if she responds in the affirmative then the character will hint at how she can move in the right direction towards which guy she likes. You do need a certain number of friendship points for the romantic ending to initiate, but you should have little problem reaching that since practicing with the guys also raises this stat in addition to their survivability, and there are scattered other dialogue options throughout that often raise the friendship stat of more than one guy at a time. Nothing depletes the friendship stat, and there are other rewards for filling it up other than just getting a Set 2 ending ;)