I think the dynamics you touched upon are specific to coderwall, their revenue model, their leadership, and their choice of stack(not that any of it is bad, it has just created the situation you described), and you can't judge every startup/product/team on assembly through the same lens. Only a few of the products on assembly are profitable at this time, the majority of things are in idea stage, and I think those projects are the ones where one can get the most value for their work. Of course there is the risk that the product is never completed or turns a profit, but that's all startups.

I'm all in on assembly, my current startups on there are: http://assembly.com/startl http://assembly.com/bootswap http://assembly.com/chatbotify-me http://assembly.com/authorsimple http://assembly.com/brytn

products I did not start but am active on: http://assembly.com/cliq http://assembly.com/dawn http://assembly.com/okvaper

Startup ideas laying around I plan to put up there once I've got the ball rolling on my current ones: http://transtartup.blogspot.com

Assembly will prove valuable if people create value for the ideas put there on the risk that it will pay off, and the smaller the team when the dev gets in, the bigger of an impact and stake they can have/be rewarded.