My guess is that it's related to the "hardfork voting" feature slowly taking form. That's in sharp contrast to the way Bitcoin is doing controversial updates.

Governance is an unsolved problem in cryptocurrencies. Decred at leasts does offer a new model that can be experimented with. It is unknown if it will work better than "benevolent dictators" or "chaotic voting" like in BTC, but it's worth a try.