Hey, folks!
First: I feel sorry for you for the shitstorm caused by the recent backup changes. While I’m one of the people who are unhappy with the change, I appreciate the hard work you put into Home Assistant! 
I’m posting this here, since I don’t want to add additional clutter to The Backup Thread.
To reduce the risk of future shitstorms, have you considered doing a Request For Comment process? I’m not suggesting you should do it for every feature, since that would result in no work ever getting done 
, but for high-impact features like backup, API changes or whatnot, it might be worthwhile?
I’m aware it’s a big ask. It’s hard to get it working well, without endless bikeshedding and unproductive arguing, and people on the outside probably don’t realise the time and effort it requires. But it has the potential to give you insight into how users interact with HA, how some change might impact people in ways you hadn’t thought of, and improvements to solutions for problems you want to fix.
I don’t know exactly how it should be implemented, but a couple of key components would be… Probably not running it on GitHub, as you’d need feedback not just on technical architecture by developers, but also UX / behavioural input from regular users. And it’s important to note that a RFC process is distinctly different from a beta-testing period; it’s meant to be a feedback cycle for shaping the changes to come, not test-driving iterative implementation.
Anyway, it’s just a suggestion / half-baked idea, ultimately it’s your project 