Weirdly, there's a great deal of pressure *against* ambitious changes. You're signing up for a half-decade grind, whereas other changes have a much better risk-reward profile. There's a reason I've generally stayed out of Bitcoin development and stuck with Lightning, where life is easy:)

There is a great reason to not break something that is working. The approach to changes in the bitcoin environment through max pain (BIPs, reviews and endless testing) is a way to remain max conservative. This is good, because there is a lot at stake (no pun intended) to have the base layer not failing. To get funding or appreciation for your work and implement your personal ideas, bitcoin is not your environment. Much kudo's and respect for those programmers who manage to survive and stay a bitcoin programmer! That you @Rusty Russell for being a lightning developer and enjoying it, for work must not feel as work for you to be the best version of you on the matter 💪 The freedom to program what you recon the market may want is very entrepreneurial vs. conservative and probably the most fun for (a/most) developer(s) 👊