The overworked solo maintainer is a problem. However I've seen way too many projects where individuals in the 'team' are able to carve out impenetrable fiefdom

The overworked solo maintainer is a problem. However I've seen way too many projects where individuals in the 'team' are able to carve out impenetrable fiefdoms where they can operate with wide latitude. I could see a Jia Tan being able to pull this off in a team context as well - bigger teams might even be weaker. (Everyone welcome Jia - he's going to write test cases and optimize our build process so everyone can focus on $LAUNCH_DAY)