Actually, the C&D led almost directly to the official release. Minori staff contacted No Name Losers and were rather upset at the translation project (and at the piratical nature of the patch), then the two groups started talking, and then MangaGamer got involved. If No Name Losers did not exist, or if they hadn’t decided to translate Ef, Minori would probably not be working with MangaGamer.
It seems to me that Minori was surprised that there was enough interest in their products for people to go to all the trouble of an unofficial patch. They didn’t seem terribly interested in the foreign market before that.