Since this seems to be getting no attention, I’ll share this paragraph from a former staff member in 2021. In the absence of other staff responses, I think it’s fair to assume that the same issues are plaguing the game today.
here’s a link if you would like to read the discussion yourself
“So, what exactly was going on? I will explain my experience and view, so this is subjective.
Every decision has to go through [Wally] if he does not like the idea, it will usually get denied. It is irrelevant whether the entire team proposes that it would benefit the game or not. In my case, that was CS stuff (basically everything you interact with, aka press spacebar), but it is not limited to that specifically. Some quality check is totally fine and needed, but you usually do not get through that easily. Most of the time, many pings and dm's were necessary to even get a response. Wally, I talked to you so often about that and it was an issue when I joined and when I left. You are massively overloaded and need to distribute some work/decision making to others not named [Cames] who is busy enough as well. Somebody has to be trustworthy enough at this point.”