Ok true. I guess my point is that they're not funding shitcoin projects. If a developer suddenly turns to shitcoining after receiving a grant then that sucks. But they're usually given grants after applying for a specific reason.

And i think telling devs exactly what you want them to do can be equally terrible. Might as well make them employees.

At the end of the day, very few consensus changes are merged to bitcoin and simply funding research or development is not a guarantee that bitcoin will be changed. And if it is changed then you still need node runners to run the software containing the changes.