Yes, I think the DAO has funded some great stuff and has great potential. Lots of room for improvement, though, imho.
Here's one idea that need not be a replacement, but could be supplemental: something like a KickStarter model, where folks can stake-weight vote for projects (and their stake-weighted vote portion of the DHF daily distribution goes into a holding account, earmarked for the specific projects that have their active vote), then when a given project gets its full funding, the funds start paying out. If the project doesn't get the necessary funding before the deadline, the funds are returned to the DAO (with maybe a limited number of extensions if the funding is close, but not quite complete).
Could also provide alternative ways for folks to contribute to their projects of choice (e.g. via setting projects as beneficiaries, and maybe a certain # of weekly upvotes can go to projects instead of posts).
Still thinking this through, though.
Ya, pretty cool idea imo. It's similar to what is being built for spk dao. Basically, you'll set a task you want to see on Hive, can be marketing or coding or whatever. Set the price, any milestones, etc., then post. If the community bids this task up above the return prop threshold, it is now eligible for funding and people can now bid on the task. It's a reverse auction style setup where bidders now compete among one another for a job they know is going to pay. One of the biggest barriers in the current DAO system imo is just ease of use. First, you have to create a job then you need to go around promoting it, so people know to vote and get funding, and people think it may not get funding so not worth the effort. It's not like you can write a quick prop and push it out without it being detailed. Just the very time sink it cost to write a proper prop, get it marketed for a chance it may get funded.
WIth the SPK DAO, it's now as easy for a developer or anyone to just submit a bid and compete vs. all the other bidders without the need to worry about anything else. This will also bring more competition to tasks because you now have a open competition where bidders can undercut others.
From there, the community will vote on which persons bid they like the most, the bidder that passes yet another return prop for x time will be awarded the task.