If feedback was listened to in the forum by administration and there was a chance that it was heard, listened to and potentially used to build upon the new forum software idea, I'd be much more motivated, though I am sure we can all agree that would be ignorant to assume.
Then, set up the demo forum, decentralized and with access to the general public, via the .com/.org domain. And present it to the public.
I believe that, if Bitcointalk does not migrate to this service, you will be able to sell it with some ease and make good money.
There is a big difference between knowing the technical intricacies of a technology (thus knowing whether something is possible or not) and actually developing it. For example, one might know how a Bitcoin node works and what it is capable of down to each of its functions, but that doesn't mean that they can build each of these functions into an application if they were to try. However, you are right, once I do go ahead and build the case study then the next step may as well be to push for the development of the software itself. Unfortunately, unlike Bitcointalk, I do not have an ample amount of bitcoins to fund this. Nor do I have enough time at my disposal to allocate to the project part time. Nonetheless we'll see what happens when the case study is done down the line.