I thought the BCF is supposed to help pay for dev efforts
The Bitcoin Foundation does help pay for dev efforts; it pays me, Wladimir, and Cory Fields (and gives quarterly grants to fund other worthwhile efforts).
I disagree with the original poster; Bitcoin development is increasingly decentralized over time. It started out as centralized as it could possibly be-- Satoshi wrote all the code himself (or herself or their-selves).
Now we have multiple implementations, multiple altcoins, and multiple wanna-be-Bitcoin-2.0 contenders, all with their own dev person-or-team (well, some altcoins probably don't have any developers).
As for your specific ideas: go for it. If you think they're good ideas, implement them (or hire or convince somebody to implement them) and see what happens.