Without picking nits Im not seeing anything in the above that I strongly disagree with and Im familiar enough with the technology sector in general to look at it in terms of my own experience  However Im not sure I put much faith into those socalled user surveys you mention up above and Ill bet dollar to donuts that there are serious problems with the data  In other words I dispute the overarching thesis that usability is the core problem with editor retention  I know of at least a dozen editors who have stopped editing some of whom I have met in RL  When asked why they no longer edit it always comes down to the same thing the site stopped being fun and became a tedious task  Ive never talked to anyone who said the site is too difficult to use and thats probably because Ive selectively surrounded myself with type A and B people youve referred to up above  The problem as I see it and as I have experienced it is that content concerns must inevitably separate themselves from the technical concerns  This means essentially that writers must be free to write about topics in a supportive transparent environment that isnt the least bit concerned with how the software works much like screenwriters on a film project have no involvement with the animators using cloud rendering farms  To even consider mixing the two is absurd yet this is what happens every day on Wikipedia