I think that people confuse innovation with new technology rather than solving existing problems. IMO this field of cryptocurrency is still very new and evolving. This is a complex technology which has many layers, so there is lots of innovation to be had in optimizing already existing code/technology. My view would be to involve Dave Hudson from HashingIt (
http://hashingit.com/about-hashingit-com) or someone similar, who can provide right direction or at least some scientific data to decide right direction. We can't make decisions based on idealogy/emotions/greed & speculation but on data & Constitution of decred that is already available.
Also, I don't think any cryptocurrency should try to become a quick payment method if it conflicts with the core principle/strength of bitcoin/decred because its simply inefficient for that purpose by design. If a solution can be found that works alongside what we already have i am pretty satisfied with my tx times. As the decred blog says, some people invested in bitcoin have there own agenda/vision for it which conflicts with decentralization. I don't understand obsession with adoption/payment processing without proper scaling solution. There has to be some profit, financial or not, motive for this crazyness.
One thing the project is experimenting with is setting up a proper web platform geared toward discourse and voting so we as a community can engage and interact in a constructive way - all around the specific notion of software development. There are some really great open-source development efforts in this space, so it's likely Decred will draw on some of these actively maintained packages. Will post an answer to CoinHoarder's question since there is a proper roadmap of things the software absolutely needs, that will share nearly unanimous agreement. That may be a good starting point. But you can imagine with a proper platform, any other development party (or individual) can come along and choose a feature implementation proposal - and get paid for that work. No need to rely on donations and see it stagnate. The project will have continued development from day 1. Finding a way to connect the community to that process using a platform in a constructive way will be excellent, since that'll mean there'll always be a public and transparent pulse of the community-technology interface in the system.