As a software engineer by trade, I can understand having a level of indirection between the developers and the customer. Fact is, customer requests CAN get in the way of a developer doing his job, depending on how combative the customer is. There aren't usually problems if the customer is well behaved, but when they are not, it can turn into a mess. That's why I find the request for 'transparency' being something that isn't all that attractive to the developers. The indirection allows them to get the work that they need to get done, done without outside interference. It is up to management to interface with the bug list and set priorities of items on the list based on difficulty and overall usefulness of any fix to the general community.