Why is that as a community we haven't been badgering the board to do anything dramatic since Wikinews was set up /18/ months ago.
Cuz Wikinews isn't good yet, Wikipedia is only good in one language (German) and usable in a couple more (English, etc.), Wiktionary is just there, Wikibooks is a mess, and Wikiversity doesn't even know what it is yet.
It would be best if we didn't subdivide our efforts even more than they are now, or we won't get anything done!
Well "dramatic" didn't have to mean a new project!
Why is de: better than en: is a great question. They appear to have covered classic encyclopedic topics much better than en: and their proportion of Exzellente Artikeler is double that of our FAs, despite standards. How to learn from de would be a great thing to discuss.
You also note that other projects are stumbling along and that they are cause a sub-division of effort. We should change things so that projects collaborate routinely. You can click on any word in Britannica Online and get a dictionary definition for example. Why not have this in Wikipedia?
Why not have extensions that auto-detect the existence of quotations or source material by or about a person and even drag a snippet of it into the sidebar?
Yep there is lots to do, but recently the unimaginative debates about notability seem to be dominating.
Pete