In a recent Kickstarter Q&A Obsidian Entertainment's Feargus Urquhart revealed that the company had been approached by publishers wanting them to first launch a new project on Kickstarter.
We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter. I said to them "So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don't get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits" They said, "Yes".
Obviously, publishers are still struggling to get to grips with what Kickstarter means to the industry, and I think noone would object if a Kickstarter project was later picked up by a publisher who helped further it, but for a publisher to want a developer to launch a Kickstarter when there is already a financial agreement in place just doesn't sit well with me, and I'm sure a lot of backers would feel cheated if that was revealed.