Just noticed the DISCOUNTINUED too and I want to throw in my 2c as well.
As you probably know I am the Xournal port maintainer/developer.
I did create a Maemo Downloads page because I know that is the place where the stable software should be and is the place that people (should) search when looking for software.
With my first port I did put up my own repository on my desktop machine in the lab.
I did that because I knew that my patches were hacks to make it work and because I did know if Xournal would have been appreciated by the users.
When I noticed people liked it, and gave me feedback, I started working harder on it and cleaned up the hacks to made them patches and to be in sync with the upstream version.

Anyway, in both cases I did create an ITT thread.
I did that because there was (and, IMHO, there is) no other place where I can listen for feedback.
Comments on the Maemo Downloads section are not enough (and probably even useless) and, as Quim stated, the Garage forums should be used by the developers rather than from the end users.
And, in fact, I am going to create a Garage project for Xournal, but I am going to make it not for the end users, but for me (to have a place where all the Xournal stuff is properly kept) and for whoever wants to help in developing for it.

To summarize, what I miss (as a developer) is a place where I can talk with my users.
The ITT forum is the best place for that, and we all agree with it.

What Quim stated is, as always, correct: the best solution, in my eyes, would be to automatically (if the developer wishes so) create threads in the ITT forums when a new version of the application is being uploaded to Maemo Downloads and have a link to it on the final page.

So that we have, in one page, the Xournal page on Maemo Downloads:

a) a description of the application
b) a way to .install it
c) a way to discuss it -> ITT thread

(just re-read what GA wrote, it's the very same have I wrote here.. , sorry for duplicating it)