These things are true. It's why I don't compare the two. I have found watching the development of Blender to be fascinating. It's happening in plain site with many cooks in the kitchen. Where as You are one and have the final say even though you ask your users for input. So is the individual superior to the committee? I personally believe a better product is much more a possibility made by one person making the final decision. The committee will more likely make a compromise when there shouldn't be one.
Design is interesting as it's about trying to make an object seem intuitive. There is a book I think is pretty interesting. "The Psychology of Everyday Things" by Donald A Norman. It's really worth a read.

Hi Val,

> So is the individual superior to the committee?

I guess it depends on the particular goals that are being targeted. If the goal is more about amassing a whole bunch of features then the committee approach can work very well for that.

But yeah if the goal is more about making things "intuitive" or "streamlined" or "easy to learn", then it's a much different matter and having one individual in control helps out a lot. A lot less arguments for one thing... :) With a committee it invariably happens that not every single person involved shares the same precise vision for what the product should do and so the result becomes a sort of amalgamation.

Sometimes just adding features is what actually ruins simplicity by itself - and when there are a lot of people trying to contribute it gets difficult to say to someone - "sorry, your work is not quite in line with the overall product vision and so we're just throwing out all your work"... And then once something has been added in it usually stays in for a long time to come, just in general people don't react well when stuff is taken out.

- Michael