There are some FOSS projects that have well defined leaders ... namely the Linux kernel (still feudal in many ways), Python (Guido), and Ruby (Matz), and in general benevolent dictatorship can be a good steering force. Larry did a good job being insert-Diety-here too. Perl 6 appears to still be in commitee, which, for good or bad. The real software engineering question is this: can projects designed en masse like Perl 6 arrive at a workable consensus?

The current examples going through my mind now are industry standard things like Bluetooth, CIM, and W3C's WSDL/SOAP/etc ... quite the antithesis of our favorite software products in terms of simplicity and transparency.

Not making a comment either way, just thinking... these things took a long time to evolve and still haven't stabilized, while in general projects with a strong guiding lead (not dictator) have a better chance of communicating vision and bringing contributers in.

For the percieved "people are complaining" problem chromatic is complaining about to stop, you need good external organization and a way for those people to contribute, rather than just trying to make heads-or-tails of a mailing list, which they'll subscribe to, get confused, and eventually leave. And better defined leadership, timetables (however long), and better laid-out goals help too.

Finally, don't alienate your critics. They're telling you something. First and foremost, they want your product.