Bingo / gambling is out. I am not looking to push any more controversial forks.
Hurray! Well done BM!
I think that by now this response would have but obvious...any other answer would be suicide.
What I would like to see next is a re-commitment to building a quality product. No new features until the UI is something to be proud of. All the great innovations will be for naught, as people will associate the great ideas of BitShares with shoddy workmanship. Subconsciously they will say 'see, this is why we need third party exchanges. BitShares tried to make a decentralized exchange, but they couldn't pull it off.' In their mind, the technology will be a bust when the reality is that the developers weren't interested in finishing the job, but instead starting something new.
I am someone who considers myself an artist. I am a developer and a hobbyist musician. I know how hard it is to finish what you started. The further you make it into a project, the less your efforts seems to have an impact. Software very much follows the principles of 80/20. When your working on that first 80%, everything seems right in the world, like you can accomplish anything at lightning speed. Then when it comes down to adding that final 20% polish, it becomes demoralizing as you spend hours to realize that your progress, when described to someone else, sounds like nothing. But the difference between a project that is buggy and works with workarounds and is only 80% done and one that is 100% done, can be the difference between success and fail.
It doesn't matter if you can functionally accomplish what you set out to accomplish, the rest of the world doesn't see it that way. Imagine if Peertracks released their product, and the quality was the same as the BitShares wallet...there is no way in hell they could compete with Spotify. No one would in their right minds would believe the claims Peertracks are making if the product looks like shit. No artists will sign up either. Who would want to degrade their own work that way?
In a different music forum, I've seen discussions where people wouldn't use plugins because they hated the UI. It wouldn't matter if it was the best sounding plugin, if they did not like the way it looked, it would take away any of the fun in using it. Those people don't just exist, but make up a huge portion of society. Even though I want to support my own investments and the BitShares ecosystem, trading in the decentralized market is just not fun, and I would rather trade on Bter. Not only is it not fun, it lacks the tools that actually make trading effective.
So please, no more new features. Focus on your flagship product, and making whats already functionally done the best that it can be. Appearances matter. Finish the job and do it right.