There's an analogy here vis-a-vis tradition/progress. In order to be reasonably sure that a change is an improvement, you must understand what you're changing a

There's an analogy here vis-a-vis tradition/progress. In order to be reasonably sure that a change is an improvement, you must understand what you're changing and how. To borrow a Chestertonian example, if you encounter a fence and you don't know why it's there, find out why before you remove it. Maintainers are in the best position to understand the impact of making changes, and because of that, they're able to function as either advisers or as "innovators" by knowing where improvements can be made and having the knowledge to understand why they're improvements.