What has bothered me since the start was the marriage of open source with the investment herding. It feels like a massive conflict-of-interest, because as I pointed out, it impacts critically important design decisions.
Except you were and are wrong. Investors have never had any influence on any design decisions, most certainly not reptilia and debasement, as I explained that was not only wrong, but chronologically impossible -- by the way, are are aware that the stated design explicitly includes the possibility of perpetual debasement, and we are unanimously in favor of it?
I was following rpietila's altcoin observer when this was discussed months ago, and I saw rpietila weigh in quite emphatically (as he has always done when I mention perpetual debasement) that he was against it. He later become slightly flexible to something like 0.1 to 1% debasement (which is entirely inadequate based on historical norms of debt issuance, etc... you won't change human nature with a crypto-currency!).
So I call BS on him and his ilk not having any influence. He only agreed to buy your coin because he saw that you agreed with his fundamental premises.