Yes, the real truth lies somewhere in between, we will never really know.

Picco also stopped with there car development, which was taken over by Shepherd. I thought (not sure) this was the reason why Serpent went away from Picco, because the started to develop there own car.....

Yes, Serpent has a contractual deal with Picco for the Mega crankcase.
Picco has 1 crankcase machine, currently (exclusively) set for the WASP engine. The word goes that the Mega crankcase mold is broken, and Picco does not want to make a new one.....