Here's a perspective on FOSS and Ububtu. One point of free open source software was we didn't need to be stuck with features we didn't like, that were decided by some majority, or leadership, because we could fork our own and customize as we like. So I think the enthusiasm for responsiveness of a central body to feature requests, is an enthusiasm for a thing not normally associated with a FOSS, which therefore demonstrates that either: that the Ubuntu ecosystem says it is FOSS, but actually operates like something else, or that FOSS fork-your-own theory doesn't apply in practice on large projects with lots of people, or that this perspective just related here is missing something.
The UI is the type of big software that needs design and follow this design. Otherwise you end up with a complex piece of software.
You get this with all types of big software that need to keep a clean design to avoid future pains.