The most useful comment I've heard on this thread is that it makes sense to
credit the working group chairs as well as the authors of a document in the
document at the same level of emphasis. And possibly the ADs as well. I
don't know if this would make a difference, but it's interesting, and might be
worth the experiment.
But really, the main thing to say about this conversation is that it's a
classic example of why the AD's job is so time consuming. We have to monitor
these conversations, because otherwise we aren't doing the part of our job that
involves listening to the IETF. Having long bikeshed discussions about the
woeful brokenness of the AD's job over and over again without any action
proposed is expensive.
Most of what's been discussed here has been discussed by the ADs during the
recent IESG retreat, and substantial action was taken as a result of the
discussion at that retreat. It might be interesting to see if any of what we
discussed actually changes anything.