There should be, for any given issue, at least one person besides the core maintainers that has it come up in a custom search they have bookmarked and check regularly. It doesn't matter as much whether that's grouped by module or subsystem or whatever, just that everything has that level of attention. (Which also makes those people the go-to person for the core maintainers, too.)

Features yet implemented

• Easy and fast user interface for image uploading
• Supported a lot of editors like TinyMCE, FCKeditr, YUI (Every editor supported by the WYSIWYG Module)
• Supporting ImageCache. You can choose presets in the dialog
• Use custom image sizes using drag&drop

And the core Drupal team wonder why they don't get more help from all the Drupal contractors out there.

This was a comment in a thread on Greg Harvey's blog about duplicate issues. I see similar sentiments a lot. Here's the comment I left:

There is no core team. That's the myth. There are people who do more work, and there are version maintainers ... but other than that, it's whoever pitches in.

So, try not to think about "them" or "the core team" -- because it's simply a group of people that have decided to put more time in. The exact people grow and shrink depending on time and interest level, and usually per core version.

How do you get involved with Drupal core? Pick an area that interests you, and submit a patch (or review a patch, or test a patch, or design a mock up, or write some documentation). The barrier to entry for that first post is surprisingly low. And yes, from there on you have to put bit more time in - because there are many many "single post" contributors, who for whatever reason, don't follow through.

But it's worth it, and I encourage you to start by starting. Who knows, you might become part of the core Drupal team :P

I can code, and in fact have a couple of modules I've released on drupal.org, but I'm not a programmer and expect to outsource some parts of the project. As I worked, I was struck by how quickly Drupal has evolved as a "no coding" platform. Things that seemed just out of reach a year ago are now point/click/configure. It's been said (by Dries? I can't find the reference) that Drupal isn't finished until it can wash your socks. Sock-washing is still in that hard 5% layer, but a lot of what you need to do is already done for you.