The only thing "centralized" in any way is that different people with different roles are in it.
Namely witnesses. But not all witnesses are coders.
I highly recommend that you subscribe to the Gitlab. Not to "give you a run around", it is so that you too can get dozens of emails, daily, weekly etc and actually follow who says what, why and how.
As for the coding and those very important members of our community, who are the people that make ideas come to life, their discussions are not something that should be public until it is meant to be public and available to one and all. The process of writing the code unfortunately does not include a magic wand.
Anything that may distract them during their work is actually slowing things down and if their collaborative discussions were to be public, then any of the other chains out there could easily do what Hive is working on before Hive.
Most of the coders do what they do for free.
& those that are funded via the DHF are funded as per the ecosystem in place. Where stakeholders vote and those that get the necessary support are funded.
I'm not saying it is "perfect" in comparison to the ideas of "utopia", but the idea of there being privilege on Hive doesn't hold water.
Anyone can acquire stake legitimately and increase their say in our DPoS ecosystem.
That is not reserved to a select few. It is an open and very competitive market.
Anyone can play. It is just a matter of putting ones money where ones mouth is.
I don't agree with you, haven't on many things, but I do like the fact that you question things. However, I do suggest that you also accept that there are people out there like myself who are not "powerhouses" and who have been convinced of the fact that Hive is in no way anything even remotely similar to what we were used to on Steem.
I guess the looming dark shadow of a centralized Ned and his company and his dream of Neddit as the one and only UI on Steem was such a deterrent that 99% of people who could or would have invested and tried to make endeavours come to life, just said "f that".
Cheers.