I'm going to start by stating something that I feel is obvious, but may not be to those who are 'in the trenches' or may have tunnel-vision.
LL, you have one of the greatest sources of talent, imagination, and creativity in the world right at your fingertips. The SL community has proven time and again, that they have the ingenuity and the will to create some absolutely incredible things. The Builders, the Scripters, Texture Artists, Organizers, and The Dreamers here in SL are a force that is constantly looking for new ways to improve everything around them.
Having said that, I feel that LL may not be taking advantage of these assets, this arsenal of productivity and creativity, as well as you should.
Sl has its issues. Noone can argue that it doesn't. And LL, you should be working on them, and I'm sure you are. But let us HELP you. I'm not saying you should make everything Open Source (Something that can be jsut as hit-and-miss as SL's current record). But some aspects SHOULD be customizeable by the SL community.
GUI:
The GUI, in its entirety should be customizeable. The current one is flat and uninteresting. Everyone can agree on that. But why waste the time of your developers, or have that looming on the TO DO list. Give it to *US* to work on! Look at WinAmp and other programs that allow user-customization of the GUI. We, yoru customers, can come up with some amazing things.
This would be beneficial in a number of ways:
1. More time for your developers to put towards other projects.
2. A no-to-low cost solution to the current unfriendliness of the SL GUI.
3. A better user experience for your customers.
4. An infinately larger 'think-tank' to come up with and implement new GUI functionality.
etc.
Player AV Meshes:
The current AV meshes are old. They show their age in the awkwardness of texturing them, and how they react to changin their proportions. I know that it has been mentioned that LL has better meshes on the list of things to do, but why? There are a large number of 3D CGI artists in the SL community, and even more who would be willing to learn how. Tap this resource! Give us the ability to change the default meshes on our local machines.
Again this would be beneficial to both LL and your customers in just the same way as allowing us to modify the GUI.
If it's one thing that YOUR OWN product has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's that if you give us the tools to improve our experience, we'll use them. That is all that we need. Give us the tools, and we will amaze you with what we can do. Let us help make SL better, if only on the front end, and you can concentrate better on the back end.
Just give us the tools, that's all, and we'll show you something great!