Isn't this the same problem we had in 2nd edition? CB not engaging their player base on the topic of rules, and CB not listening to the people who they actually enlist to help them with the rules just leaves those who want to see improvements to the way rules are written and presented with few options besides constantly making a stink about it. It's not the dynamic I'd prefer, but I'm pretty confident that people making a stink is what led to N3 even being a thing. At the time, CB seemed perfectly content to keep building on the foundation they had, and the majority of forum vets who were around when I started participating in the community were mostly of the "whatever, just use common sense" variety.
I would love for there to be some movement on the subforums here... One for new/change in rule proposals and one for crowdsourcing better/more consistent language for existing rules.
Beginning with defining game terms (kinda like N3 already does with capitalized ones) and building rules using mostly those would be a good start. Also label system goes a long way in clearing confusion as to what affects what when you deal with something that interacts with more than one thing.
I'm pretty confident that it isn't, given that CB started working on N3 around the time that Paradiso came out, and that N2 would be a decade old at this point, so several years older than commercial wargame editions usually last for...
Then why did everything that seemed to be just around the corner get shifted back sooooooooo far? Why did Human Sphere seem so rushed in comparison to N3, with CB almost appearing surprised themselves that the old HS wasn't nearly as compatible as they had made it sound like it would be? To be clear, I mean that I think that community discussion contributed to us getting the version of N3 that we got. I'm sure a version of N3 was in the works going back that far. I seriously doubt it was the extensive overhaul and introduction of brand new mechanics that we saw in the end. I'm betting it was initially conceived as something closer to what 2nd was to 1st edition, a tidying up of rules and incorporation of FAQs/Errata.
