"The discussion continued for quite a while without making much headway."

I think Debian is interesting, being such a large project of collaboration. I want this democratic, volunteer, non-corporate backed, free project to show that 10000 eyes make bugs shallow. I wish this model produced new ways of doing things, bringing people together in the spirit of creativity and playful productivity.
I've used Debian in different ways for around 15 years now, and I really want it to succeed.
Having said that, there is a "but..." looming in the back of my mind. But... it's difficult to ignore that other distributions are the ones pushing Linux forward. The innovation from Fedora and the distributions still called OpenSuse explore new areas which become the standards.
This is not criticism of Debian, I just wonder if we humans are capable of collaborating freely at that level without some top-down force directing work forward, or if we are bound to being one step behind, always trying to catch up to what others have already done?