I did read the post above mine. If you read mine, you will see that I quoted the phrase "engaged user" -- where do you think I got that phrase? I got it from the post above mine.
Actually users have an influence that is much bigger than the Maemo community council and ITt. Users talk here and in maemo.org, but they talk as much and more through the retailers, the customer care lines, the surveys, the focused groups, the market studies... And they talk with their purchases, as many people point out here.