While I fully agree with the priorities as you raised them, many "smaller proposals" from different people may deserve support as well (this is why all proposals are there after all). I believe that there are options to support them, even if the most significant part of the support is allocated to core development (which is what we need most at present time). I am just a bit sad those options are just ignored.
Moreover, I would personally love to see comments (and engagement) on the proposals themselves. This is how they could improve (and finally get funded).
PS: beware, there is a conflict of interest here. I however tried to answer objectively ;)
I agree to a certain extent. Things such as @inertia's $3 a day banjo proposal aren't necessary for any of those goals above, but the funding is pretty insignificant for what we're getting. However, in a perfect world, we would build our base up as much as possible, and then use that as a foundation to empower all sorts of projects, services, dapps, and whatever creative things people come up with to help the platform.
I think a lot of people don't realize that we will need to support quite a few failures before we get something that really succeeds. Once we're at a certain point, we'll be poised to support many of these projects, but IMO I don't think we're at that point yet.
I am fully with you on this one :)