Discussions and decisions seems to take place in A LOT of different places.
Why not figure out a way to tag stuff so everything regardless of source is shown on the same place? So we mere mortals and none core devs can follow whats going on and how the conclusions are made. And perhaps contribute in a more timely manner.

This is one of my biggest complaints regarding the WordPress environment. It hearkens back to my feelings that the organizational structure of the project is like spaghetti. I've got my hopes up that a revamped WordPress.org will help alleviate the multiple discussion area approach but I'm not sure it will. People have different methods of communicating effectively. We have the forum, the WP.Devel site, IRC chats, mailing lists, in person at wordcamps, emails, etc. None of these forms of communication are used solely for engaging user feedback and decision making.

I first heard mentions of canonical plugins back in June of 2009 at WordCamp Chicago but had no idea what they were. I then heard about them again in more detail at WordCamp NYC where I thought the idea sounded good in theory. Then there was the post about the Canonical plugin idea with a poll on what to name these plugins on the dev blog. I don't recall a special dev meeting to talk about canonical plugins other than the topic being brought up a few different times at developer chats. I think the whole idea was discussed a little bit on the WP Devel site.

I understand WordPress is a big project with multiple facets trying to work together like a well oiled machine but I can't help but wish that decisions or experiments related to the project were all done in a coordinated fashion with some sort of structure instead of wherever the decision or thought process happens.