even relatively simple changes were not MFC'ed until someone asked for it
To a certain extent that's always going to happen in volunteer projects. That said, at least on the server side, the "ecosystem" of FreeBSD-using companies with committers on staff is expanding, and they're doing an increasing amount of this sort of maintenance. The topic of how we can make sure important MFCs happen has certainly come up.
Will this change in the support policy allow point -RELEASE's to be made more often, thereby more closely tracking changes on that particular branch of stable?
Maybe. Certainly there is significant support for doing more frequent point releases; but some of the reason they have been so slow lately has been due to operational issues (aka. re@ juggling too many balls at once) so these policy changes aren't going to have a dramatic effect overnight, but they might contribute to things improving.
To a certain extent that's always going to happen in volunteer projects. That said, at least on the server side, the "ecosystem" of FreeBSD-using companies with committers on staff is expanding, and they're doing an increasing amount of this sort of maintenance. The topic of how we can make sure important MFCs happen has certainly come up.
Will this change in the support policy allow point -RELEASE's to be made more often, thereby more closely tracking changes on that particular branch of stable?
Maybe. Certainly there is significant support for doing more frequent point releases; but some of the reason they have been so slow lately has been due to operational issues (aka. re@ juggling too many balls at once) so these policy changes aren't going to have a dramatic effect overnight, but they might contribute to things improving.