Lol Colin, 3 years of highschool computer science courses mean nothing. Honestly, I never took classes at school yet I was always the one that everybody in the classes asked to help them.

Back to this thread, I think that there are a few problems with the lack of development, which I will state below.

1.) Trouble learning development. Gs2 is not documented as it should be. Most of the documentation you will find is player-made and not as organized as it would be for a language like python or C++. This is one big problem that limits new developers.

2.) Lack of input from management. Xor doesn't even have an account for this forums. If he does, I've never seen him post here in the nearly 3 years that I've had this account. Even though these are not the official, a lot of players use them, and I think it would be wise for higher-ups to come here for feedback. I've seen nothing even similar to this. Even MASSIVE games like runescape have moderators and staff browse the forums.

3.) Lack of a proper application system. There's really nothing formal in place for players to apply for development positions. Something that I think would be cool is a "development initiative". Maybe Dusty or some other staff members could spend an hour or two on the weekends and show other players the ropes of development. They can become staff themselves later on.

4.) Input from players. I cannot stress this enough. I don't mean for players to decide every update. Running a poll every few weeks would be really healthy for the game. Ask players if they would like to see more mounts, ganis, etc.

For big updates, players can maybe choose which they would like to see first, but not actually decide the updates themselves.

Example of a poll like this:
Which update would you like to see first, guild improvements or a new minigame?