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The existing community would need to agree that the status quo is a problem first, and from what I've seen they're still quite divided on that issue.

It's an interesting question actually. How did blender leads turned the problem around and manage to refocus volunteers energy into a coherent improving roadmap.

Blender as an open source project was borne out of a company that ceased to exist. It has had multiple people working on it full time with a product mindset from the very onset. This is very different from largely volunteer/spare time projects like FreeCAD. Both are great though :)

It needs the will to follow through on major UI upheaval the way Blender did. Right now they're high on their own supply. Getting toponaming fixed will probably help, but I'll be surprised if it's enough.

Maybe. Blender has had an organization behind it for about 20 years [1]. FreeCAD formed its organization less than 2 years ago [2].

It'll be a while no matter what, but their success will largely depend on how well their roadmap aligns with the needs of their potential financial backers.

[1] https://www.blender.org/about/

[2] https://fpa.freecad.org/