I pretty much only come here to view the posts from the Dev Tracker, but it seems that whenever I do I always see some sort of argument brought forth about the information being insufficient by someone, followed by a rebuttal that amounts to an opinion that the above mentioned someone is an ungrateful poo poo head. By explaining what I think goes on at SE, I thought maybe I could convince one or two people that they're doing what they can.

Almost certainly, rule at the office is one of committee. Yoshi-P may be roughly in charge, but he's not the only voice that matters. Good leadership, I think, requires a lot more listening than it does talking. After all, you're putting together a lot of people with not only different opinions, but with vastly different skills and abilities, and trying to guide them as a unit toward a common goal. For an example of how difficult that can be, you only have to check the discussions on this very board. Very few are ever resolved with consensus. Even so, consensus must be reached at SE before development can even begin. When a Dev posts to say "We're discussing it", they mean it. You don't get to see how much effort is put into these discussions, but you can be assured that "We're discussing it." is a serious understatement of that effort.

The second thing I see people complain about is the lack of timelines or solid dates. Ideally, we'd have those, but situations are very rarely ideal. They say "Haste makes waste". Having a fixed date for things is eventually going to put pressure on people to rush produce something. Isn't that what it feels like got us into this situation in the first place? I think it feels like the game was rushed out the door to satisfy an arbitrary date, at least, and it's not a mistake I'd like to see repeated. Instead of being negative, though, I like to look at the current situation as a big opportunity for the creative types among us to influence the game while developers take the time to implement those influences properly.

Lastly, I find the Dev tracker to be enormously informative. I can get some little bit of information about what's going on at the head quarters almost every day. Even if it's just what is being discussed or what topics are being thought about, I feel more a part of Square's development team than I ever have. I also feel an honest good-faith effort to make right what went wrong. I genuinely feel a fondness for this development team and Yoshi-P. I have faith in them, and I don't think that faith will go unrewarded.