Slow, unorganized development could probably work as long as the devs don't bite off more than they can chew each time, and have a detailed plan for each minor release. But I guess for that kind of planning work you'd need some kind of manager, or at least a lot of very on-topic contact between devs.
From what I can tell, reworking the entire jobs system was a huge task that the legacy code made more difficult than it seemed.
I think some proper documentation on the config, the editor, and making girls, (along with pimping on hentai forums) could bring in a lot of user-made content, which could revitalize things a little; I remember trying out rapelay, and noticing how many mods got posted on Hongfire.
Maybe that's something I could do (the first part anyway), since my coding skills are obviously not up to working on the trunk.