It struck me today looking through Paul Graham's website that there are those who write software who don't actually use their own software - or as is popular phrase has it: "They don't eat their own dog food". As I look at the Joomla! project I see that we're all users, some of us are developers and others are administrators. In that respect I think that the project keeps itself alive and up to speed with tasks because we're all in a small way personally interested. We know how annoying it is that some feature doesn't work properly. We know what parts of the API are confusing and what parts would be really awesome if we just had this feature and as administrator wishing that we could do something that seems so elusive (say, ACL?). This also extends beyond Joomla! the CMS and onto the services we offer: JoomlaCode, JED, Forums, etc - we're all users of each of those systems. I think it adds a touch that we have the same issues that you do and every day, little by little, we're trying to make everything better for everyone. :)