Well, yeah, but the context here is open source apps (or is it?). No amount of enticing or forcing someone to go through garage will help with closed apps or components :-)

Sure, it can happen. Even in group projects with large headcounts (trivial example: Hildon). If/when it does, since the source is available, interested parties can pick it up. If there are no interested parties, well, too bad, find something else to replace it. Software (whether open or closed) never comes with lifetime warranties.

In the meantime I hope no one is seriously suggesting that we are supposed to stop using apps written (mainly) by one author just in case that person gets bored and goes away. Or that we should somehow force extra developers to join such projects (and the projects to accept them). Both attitudes would be borderline mental disorders IMHO.

I guess I don't get what problem we're trying to solve here. Given access to the source of the latest release, what more assurance can we reasonably expect?