Is the implication meant to be that Bitcoin Core isn't conservative, well reviewed, and/or well maintained? If so, why do you think that? Or is your desire to have additional implementations that are conservative, well reviewed, and well maintained? If so, do you think that's a better use of limited developer talent than focusing on making Bitcoin Core better? When I read your post, I get the feeling that you think about "Core" and "Knots" as teams that each move with a single shared purpose, as if under the direction of an individual. That might be true for Knots, which effectively has a single developer, but it's not how I see the Bitcoin Core project, whose contributors are often in disagreement with each other (if usually only about the best way to achieve a particular goal). Maintaining that environment where independent contributors can easily collaborate, are free to express their differing opinions, and can create single-topic software forks (like PT's librerelay or the BIP148 activation client) if they feel out of alignment with the other devs seems to me like a better use of scarce talent than creating more implementations for the purpose of having more teams.