Thats fair comment, but how do you define the middle ground between sitting in an ivory tower and wondering what the next feature should be, between asking people who actually use your product in ways you wouldn't expect?

I release computer games, which are developed largely in secret and when they hit the market after 4-7 years people find all kinds of warts and issues that we never even thought of.

GitLab seems to be of the idea, "ask people what they need, make small incremental movements into making that happen and release those increments often so that people don't get jarred by changes"

I can support that, and I don't think it bears negatively on their integrity.