A large part of the reason those are the only ideas on the table is the closed development process and that those are the only ideas that have been promoted and pushed by Steemit, even though they have not been able to deliver on them to any significant degree.

This is a broken ecosystem, and some profound restructuring is needed as a precondition to make it work better before more, and better, work can actually get done. @aggroed is correct about that (as are you).

Agree re "Committees". The model that seems to work best in the cryptocurrency marketplace is a foundation to govern that the funds are managed responsibly and then developers are hired or given grants (on a project and/or ongoing basis) to do the work. It isn't committees or even teams that do the work, it is developers (and marketers, lawyers, etc. depending on the nature of the work that needs to be done). The foundation or what some are calling committees exist to oversee the thing and make sure that money isn't wasted or stolen.