> It has certainly 'worked great' for leeches,

And for communities, and for sponsoring companies, and for some (although not all) authors.

> if you ignore bombs like this logging bug destroying Western civilization.

...yeah, no; a library had a bug. Somehow, Western civilization is still here.

> Can you explain a bit more how it worked great for the bulk of maintainers / authors who don't see any return on their work, burn out and have to do something else?

Can you explain why you think the majority of authors/maintainers burn out?