How about simply paying the maintainers and then getting stuff done like the classical business does.
1 to 2 paychecks = 100% increase.
> good guys getting one paycheck instead of zero
0 to 1 paycheck = infinity increase.
With a known baseline of "good paychecks", financial analytics can pursue identification of "bad paychecks".
Related, the motivation for trying to gain privileged access to open source projects is to leverage the existing trust associated with that project. A different long game that could be played is to create a new project with the intent on backdooring it a few years down the road, after it has gained sufficient trust.