Similar to one other commentor, I wonder whether a text-based format (perhaps email/wiki) could be a more effective use of everyone's time?
(that plus the ability to question and correct aspects of the project asynchronously could compare favourably to spoken meetings, where details could be forgotten or misinterpreted over time, and where bandwidth for audience feedback is usually limited)
I'd be willing to bet a reasonable amount that there's a large future for "subtractive software development" (maybe a slightly misleading or unfair term, since it'd include bugfixes).
Once we have multiple proven technologies that handle each of the functional areas that we collectively need, then we'll start to find greater benefit in maintenance, bugfixes, and performance improvements for those existing technologies and their dependencies than we find writing additional code and libraries.
The ability to sustain a facade thanks to marketing may be possible currently, in some circumstances; but that might not be true forever.
It's also true that success doesn't require marketing; plenty of popular software and libraries, for example, have achieved their position not by advertising themselves, but by providing the correct solution for the task at hand.
(that plus the ability to question and correct aspects of the project asynchronously could compare favourably to spoken meetings, where details could be forgotten or misinterpreted over time, and where bandwidth for audience feedback is usually limited)