Yes very true and well written, however not just an issue with oxwall but a recurring issue with all open source projects which allow the public to contribute plugins, modules, however they are referred to.   The good news is that Oxwall is not on the bottom of list in my book anyway, i believe elgg and others hold that spot.  Talk about abandoned plugins and being stuck in deprecation go visit elgg sometime, its just horrible from my experience.  It got so bad i had to wipe my whole site years ago and start all over gain with something else. 

I doubt if Oxwall will ever get to that point.  I totally agree that a healthy platform always has options, maybe not perfect options but something in the mix.   I also agree that healthy competition is great for everyone, it keeps devs hungry (for more business), it keeps prices down, it keeps clients happier, it is a win win win situation.  And we def need more of it.

What does concern me though is the fact that the team appears to be at a point where they are letting go of in house plugin.  Im horrible at keeping up with blogs so i did just read about Oxwall letting go of the links plugin and handing it over to an outside developer. This concerns me not because of the link plugin, if the plugin can be serviced better by an outside entity then so be it.  What concerns me about this is that needs of users seem to be growing but the team and their umbrella may be on a plateau. 

I do hope this will not be a trend to come and i hope im totally over analyzing this as something when it is nothing.  The Oxwall foundation needs to grow, both in team members as well as options for in house plugins as you said matt.   

Custom plugins are one thing, but when users over time have become dependent on plugins that become standard purchase i think Oxwall foundation needs offer to purchase the plugin at a fair price and take over the plugin in house.  Or if in worse case the plugin is totally abandoned, the owner does not reply to any emails, and it is totally causing havoc with many installs and meets a criteria for necessity, then Oxwall should just take over the plugin in house.  Otherwise a fair price means that you take the last years sales for that plugin and multiply by 2.5 and that is fair in most cases.

Wordpress also has a similar issue but their issue is not so bad because building plugins for WP is big business and it is still a very hot commodity.  Which means there are plenty of good developers to go around and they tend to either build replicas or very similar plugins so the competition is great. 

I certainly dont have the answer but i know that between a forum discussion such as this, the public, the developers, and the team, workable options can be developed.  I do know that a little birdie told me that Oxwall is looking at the whole store plugin issue so give them some time and im sure over time positives will happen.