How do you vision a protocol change that would make Bitcoin transaction's outputs interchangeable? Wouldn't we have to move onto implementations like ring signatures that would create hard forks?
I never said I want ring signatures specifically. I don't know what the best protocol level privacy improvements would be, and whether these would require a soft or a hard fork.
Who exactly is the community? This forum? The developers? The miners? The majority of its users? I think that in Bitcoin, the word “community” is highly abused. How can one define what's the community on a consensus based system?
Someone will propose an idea. Anyone who is interested can discuss the idea. If it's a good idea, the developers might work on the idea. If there is a lot of support for the idea, then it might move towards being implemented. Some changes make their way in to Bitcoin Core based on the consensus of the development team, but it is still ultimately up to each person running a node to update their software with these changes. Other changes, like Taproot (a soft fork), require both nodes and miners to make the switch. For Taproot, once >90% of miners signal their acceptance, then it will lock in for activation at a future date. You can see the Taproot consensus status here:
https://taproot.watch/