Holch, I am already spread incredibly thin between multiple open-source projects. Why are you assuming that I am not?!
Well, now you are assuming that I am assuming...
I am not talking about you, I am talking about the general situation. As you are helping in other OSS projects, I guess you see similar things. Many users just use the software and don't give back. As I said, this is OK, because it is the decision of the team to provide a software as OSS and free of charge.
Also, we can not support every OSS software that we are using from time to time. I use a couple of OSS softwares, but I only really give back to LS (which I actually don't use this much, but I like it).
This is all fine. I am just trying to explain why things might be as they are.
I don't know you and what you do, you don't know me and we both have little insight on what is going on within the inner Limesurvey circle. So it is hard to judge.
Your feedback in the forum is basically lost, because the forum is mainly maintained by volunteers like Joffm, Denis, Tpartner, Jelo, me and a couple of others that show up now and then. From the core developers, few show up in the forum. Especially at the moment, as they are busy to fix issues in LS 4.x, which is/was a mess.
When it comes to UI and usability, I have little hope that there will be a change any time soon. I think there was a plan to get a interface designer on board at one point, but I don't know how this turned out and when this might happen. I think the current focus is on getting LS 4 stable, everything else is on hold.
Changes to the UI might happen for LS 5.x at the earliest. If at all. Which is sad, but makes sense to me in the current situation.
I think improvements to the UI will be something very long term, and currently I have very little hope that there will be a very structured approach to the UI, given the experiences from the past. So if you expect to see any quick and deep changes to the UI any time soon: don't!
You will need to be happy with very little baby steps, if not the new CEO (started last week) will bring a complete turnaround.