There is a very big lack of manpower, lack of designers, lack of general availability from sysadmins or developers competent at UX.
It saddens me greatly. I used to take care of releases, outreach and UX but focusing on my company means I don't have the time to do that anymore. Despite taking great care to reduce the bus factor as much as possible, right now, LXQt is stuck without a release because there's nobody that both cares about the project and has the time and skills to do this kind of stuff.
This is how the Linux desktop dies. A couple of "big" players doing their own thing and a plethora of small players never trying to partner up with similar projects. LXQt was successful for a long time because it was two small projects that merged into a larger one, but people move on and the momentum gets lost.