I would like to suggest that a special donation fund be created for the purpose of improving or adding to the game through sub-contracted work. I suggest that if this idea is implemented, that it be done for one problem/improvement/addition at a time. That is, donations will go towards hiring programmers to fix a bug in the game, or add a new feature, and will continue to go towards that until the goal is reached. And then a new goal will be set and all donations will go towards that. The current goal for the donations could be displayed in the forums, or on the games homepage.
I am sure there are a few of us, new or old, who would be willing to donate little bits at a time to go towards this. It may not get to thousands of dollars immediately, but eventually, I think it will. And, if the dev team can try and focus some funds towards the goal, as well as the donations, it would go a lot quicker.
If this isn't a plausible idea, could a dev please respond and say why? Thank you. I think legal reasons could be a problem? Or maybe the devs think the community wouldn't support the donation goals enough to go through the trouble of setting it up?
I suggest this because it seems that a team so small would benefit from subcontracting work, and they may already do it (I think I may have seen it mentioned that they do). I'm sure if given the chance, the community will continue to show their support and love for the game by donating all the little bits ($5-10 here or there, even if it's only once a month or every two months).