I'm going to make a few points that I think will respond to some comments that I've read, and I will try to organize some of my previous points so that they're easier to follow.
1. My impression is that there's agreement that there is a huge backlog.
2. I think that there's consensus that the backlog is a problem.
3. I think that we're collectively unsure how to address the backlog, or how to analyze the backlog so that everyone has shared situational awareness, but we collectively seem to agree that the backlog should be addressed.
If any of the above is wrong, please feel free to say so.
Regarding my own opinions only, I personally am frustrated regarding multiple issues:
a. that there's been discussion for years about technical debt,
b. that WMF's payroll continues to grow, and while I think that more features are getting developed, the backlog seems to be continuing to grow,
c. that WMF, which has the largest budget of any Wikimedia entity, is not more transparent regarding how it spends money and what is obtained from that spending;
d. that although I think that the Community Liaisons help a lot with communications, there remains much room for improvement of communications. One of my larger frustrations is that the improvements regarding communications have not been more extensive throughout all of WMF.
e. that WMF retains the ability to veto community decisions regarding decisions such as deployments of features, but the community has little ability to veto WMF decisions. I think that staff as individuals and collectively have become more willing to negotiate and yield ground in the past few years, which is good, but I remain concerned that these are informal rather than formal changes.
f. that I think that some of what WMF does is good and I want to support those activities, but there are other actions and inactions of WMF that I don't understand or with which I disagree. Conflicts can be time consuming and frustrating for me personally, and my guess is that others might feel the same, including some people in WMF. I don't know how to solve this. I realize that some people might say "Then you should leave", and I regularly consider that option, but Wikipedia and the sister projects do a lot of good, so I'm torn. This is very much my personal issue and I don't expect to discuss it more on Wikitech-l, but it's a factor in how I think about this email thread, which is why I mention it.
I hope that this email provides some clarity and is useful for this discussion.