The commit graph (gitk --all if you are using plain decentralised git, GiHub's network graph for the convenient everyone-github-knows online version) makes it q

The commit graph (gitk --all if you are using plain decentralised git, GiHub's network graph for the convenient everyone-github-knows online version) makes it quite obvious which author is good at reviewing and integrating patches. With a little bit of side-channel communication, a deficient maintainer is easy to replace. Also, someone who is late at merging patches won't have a lot of difficulty catching up. If they did no divergent work at all, it's just a matter of picking the best integrator and fast-forwarding.