Greatly appreciate this post sharing insight into roadmaps. The largest concern I have with this is with how the roadmap areas are considered. The number one priority is the founder’s vision. This may seem pedantic, but I want to emphasize that Home Assistant is a foundation and should have guiding principles driving. The perspective should shift from an individual to a community.
The reason I mention this is because of a neglected feature request, Open letter for improving Home Assistant's Authentication system (OIDC, SSO) - #2 by cgarwood. This is a feature request and I get there is no obligation to deliver. However, this topic is the 3rd highest voted request and one of the most active threads. Almost every month new pull requests come through that are squat on or closed with a vague response pointing to this post. The few comments made by staff members do not shown any understanding to the value this feature brings. The forum is being used as a way channel user input into a blackhole. During the State of the Open Home livestream, several community memebers asked about external identity providers but the question was dodged.
External Identity Provider support does not align with the founder’s vision. The founder’s influence should definitely exist, but do not think the answer is to ignore such an active topic. I would expect Home Assistant Foundation have something in place to at least acknowledge top community items.