And see where we are now?

There are certainly better reasons that the blockchain is suffering more than the lack of developer incentives. One of them is developer focus. Another we can tie into the game theory behind Steem. A third would be cryptocurrencies being strongly correlated with Bitcoin. All better reasons to why we are here now.

rather than reckless delegation to projects with the most hype

Nobody forces anybody to delegate. How would a shared pool solve this issue? Please enlighten us.

Ethereum, even Bitcoin does this to a degree.

My concern is about on-chain funding. Foundations and private companies are off-chain funding. I'm perfectly fine with that sort of funding and would encourage it.

Sure, decentralize everything ... Nothing gets done in the end.

reliance AWAY from a few parties.

I feel like these ideas conflict with each other to a degree. The second implies moving toward the first, and critiquing the first would suggest moving towards the second.

He's not a witness though, does that mean he's not qualified to develop Steem?

He may be qualified to develop Steem, it depends on his experience. But let's say dude solves all our problems with perfect code. If code doesn't get witness support it isn't passing regardless.