I seriously don't think x amount of time has any value.

Let's say Akismet has an issue and some of us look at it to fix it.

Nick Haskins, Jeff Chandler, A random Theme author, Tooth fairy, Me and so forth.

We will all spend different amounts of times to fix the Akismet issue.

I have never EVER looked at the Akismet plugin's code. All I do is get the key, put it on my admin dashboard, and activate the plugin (those three things, not in that order, is the most I done with Akismet).

Now ppl who are working on Akismet itself. They will be able to fix the issue a lot faster than any of us.

I am assuming Nick Haskins has never worked on Akismet, Before his comment above I never heard of him (Sorry Nick).

Quality of Work has value, Quanity of time you spend on whatever has no value.

Not saying authors don't do good work, they do. Still, you can spend a million more hours, that will not convince me to click the DONATE button or buy the PRO version of theme/plugin any faster.