TBH, I am mostly speculating based on past experience, and not hard data, so it is understandable that reasonable people can hold a different opinion. I also write a lot of software by necessity (most of it ends up as open source), and find that independent projects develop faster. It is not that monolithic projects cannot do something, just that it takes longer to get there. And without a lead developer who has a clear vision, people are afraid of culling unused features and doing any major refactoring which would step on someone’s toe.
I fully agree that major changes are disruptive. But sometimes disruption is the way forward. Remember how (some) users took the transition to screen referred workflow.