Thanks for bringing it up! The DHF has been on my mind a lot the last few weeks. I'm mostly worried about how we will attract proposals from users who don't have 'a name'/rep on Hive yet - and how we will encourage teams without the means but with skills to add to our ecosystem.
I'm currently looking at the Dapplr team, who are clearly doing a lot of research, design work, and promotion on both Twitter and Hive for their app, answering every question from community members about the choices they make and why they make them, but have difficulty funding. Every time a user of 'intermediate' influence posts about their app they are gaining a few more votes, getting closer and closer to getting funded, but they're still a long way from the Return Proposal.
Still, I think they might get there, because they are actually grinding their way towards getting the votes in by building up momentum and releasing previews of their work regularly.
I can only guess why their Proposal hasn't been funded yet, but knowing from which part of the world they are combined with the (extremely low from Western perspectives) pay they are asking for server costs and paying the junior design team I would guess they might never have made a proposal if it had costed them money.
And I do think we should allow those without financial means but with skills to have a change on Hive. I'm fairly certain they will deliver the app regardless of getting funded - it would be ridiculous if they were going to add value to our system without getting funded and even having to have paid a 'fee' in the meanwhile - 1HBD (I know this is just an example, but still) is pocket change for some, and a decent amount for others.
Cost me more words than I intended to write to make that point, but okay.
What I do see working, or at least being a general direction for solving this 'issue' is having proposals slowly phase out of the DHF overview each week or month they didn't get votes. That would mean that most proposals that were meant for Steem and are still on the current DHF would slowly go to the background. It would also mean that proposals from people that lack both 'rep' and/or 'promotion' and/or skillset to not mess up the DHF overview list.
Cheers.
I can't say for other stakeholders, but I can say why I haven't voted for dapplr yet: they aren't starting opensource, but plan to migrate to it eventually, if I read their comments correctly. That just doesn't make sense to me (and I've seen several projects make similar claims, none of which I voted for).
If they were opensource, I would vote for them.
I respect that choice, and if they hadn't publicly/on chain promised to open source their app I wouldn't have voted either, but I can see why that's not enough for others to vote on now.
Still, my main point is, let's not create (financial) burdens for people to participate/add value to Hive. Although I do appreciate people having to prove their worth and thus our vote, I don't think financial burdens should be the (only) way to do so. A 'phase out' of irrelevant proposals over time (where the proposals still can receive votes but are simply 'below the line' for not receiving votes for x amount of weeks) would be a decent way of cleaning up mess.
I like your statement, with the exception of the rep requirement. Rep is too easily bought and too easily targeted IMO to be included as criteria on anything important.