True, though I think it's probably a very large undertaking for a single person. Bringing it up on the mailing list would be a good way to gain mindshare and contributors.
Well, I think that's definitely true in most cases, especially when the direction of a project isn't really nailed down you tend to get a lot of backseat driving and discussions over things that aren't important to the original goals, and people want to make the project about X when it should really be about Y, etc... I guess you need an OSS leader to either lead through strength of character/charisma, or by having already written the bulk of the code, but code trumps everything else so it's better to have written the bulk of the code.
Point being, I think you're right and I think my initial reasoning was wrong. But all the same, a little mailing list discussion generally doesn't hurt.
