Whichever way you choose to go, just make sure that you get at least tacit nod of pre-approval for what you intend to tackle. There is nothing more intensely frustrating than expending time and effort on getting up to speed on something, and then developing your fix/patch/module only to have it rejected by some faceless, self-assigned jobs-worth on a mailing list.

Oh And bear in mind that tasks that have been around for a while and aren't being tackled are usually being bypassed for a reason. Whether its because they are just damned hard, or more often, because they are as boring as hell.

Actually, there is something more annoying. Having a planning permission request rejected or modified because some local councilor thinks they are "too original".