Hi @LN and @W_Brunette,
I certainly welcome this very thoughtful post by @LN; It is very useful to pause from time to time and evaluate the work done so far.
I have tried sometimes ago to draw the attention to the excessive pace of software releases https://forum.getodk.org/t/necessity-for-long-term-release-of-odk-software/8921/8.
I think more than ever that it would be best to publish yearly (or six-monthly) long-term (LTR) releases because constant changes are not necessarily a good thing. Both users and developers need some stability. Only bug corrections should be released soonest whenever they are ready. This is the case with many well-known open-source software such as QGIS. This will allow more thorough testing of the software and more robust architecture planning.
As to who should publish new releases, once their calendar is agreed upon, this should be determined beforehand and it should be restricted. Perhaps I have misunderstood @W_Brunette, but if several people can publish new software releases, this is going to be chaotic and detrimental to the community. Most probably @W_Brunette only wants to point out rightly to the need of sharing better the tasks involved in the publication process to avoid a glut (bus factor).
Better sharing of responsibilities would certainly help improve the reliability and speed of software releases. But I am still worried by the current excessive pace of these releases.