In reply to Scott.

Scott,

Do yourself a favor when replying to others and actually address what they said, and not what you would like them to have said.

Andreas did not say that the time it takes to build or redo stuff in WordPress has nothing to do with WordPress. What he actually said was that, in the specific case where you had mentioned someone whose site wasn't finished, that was most likely because the developer isn't very good and has nothing to do with WordPress.

Those two statements are very different. The fact that you treated them as the same suggests your case is weak. Which it is.

In fact, Andreas was emphasizing the importance of developers because they are the only ones who can make WordPress easy/easier to use.

Your problem is that you fail to appreciate that many developers already know what users need and want. They have, after all, been working with clients for years. You even see several such developers here regularly: Andreas himself, mark k., Central Geek, Alec, Mike Schinkel -- to name just a few.

WordPress's fundamental problem is that the developers responsible for core haven't been listening to developers like these. So your beef should not be with developers as a whole, but with those responsible for core. For too long, the latter have tinkered with peripheral shiny stuff and continued to overlook or drag their heels on what really matters.

So the idea of a Growth Council is really a distraction. (There are other distractions too, like Calypso.) Of much greater interest is that Matt has announced a change to the release cycle, and that he himself will be leading a release.

WordPress really needs a fundamental change in the way it develops. I can't predict whether Matt's new direction will be the right one, because he hasn't set out many details of the focus of this new approach. But the first thing he should be doing is talking to developers outside of core who really know what they are doing and have isdeas to contribute that have been ignored for too long.

And, for the record, I am not a developer. I speak as a user.