Another issue that wasn't covered is duplication of effort.

Imagine working on a feature for weeks, only to realize that other people with more experience and knowledge of the project are doing the same work.

What's the incentive from the maintainer's point of view to reduce duplication of effort? The maintainer's not paying either developers, and they have a backup if one of them doesn't come thru.

But from a developer's perspective, it's frustrating to put efforts into a patch that doesn't end up being used.