I think when something is built by several people, catering to outside interests, you end up with more churn, bloat, inconsistency, instability, etc. But your specific need has a better chance if being addressed. When something (like Elm) is built in a silo, you end up with less churn, bloat, instability, inconsistency. We forget how we got these nice things, and when we want something NOW we get cranky about the development model. So, as a developer with 20+ years of experience I can say that EVERYTHING (tools, languages, paradigms) is shitty in some ways, and I vastly prefer the ways that Elm and ecosystem are shitty.

Having worked with "the main dev" I can't say I share this view. It has been very nice to be able to pick his brain and hear his thoughts. It can be exhausting, when you want to improve things now, but come up with a better long term plan. I guess that's a language designer thing.