Moderators (and especially the punishments they dish out) are controversial. Above else, they must be impartial and level-headed. But moderators are people, too. They can get emotional, and the last thing I want is user vs. moderator drama. Currently, my decisions are final, so there is no conflict. I really don’t want to have to deal with second-guessing the moderators or undoing their ‘wrong’ decisions – that would be bad any way you look at it.
Also, the main purpose of this forum right now is Early Access user feedback, not general community development. In that sense it’s best if I personally go through each post (especially bugs/ideas) and make a decision as to its merit. Moderators will definitely be needed in the future, as the community grows x10 (hopefully).
CIU is a complex game. Exceedingly complex. Complicating factors: It’s in C++ (ugh), it’s a large codebase (200k+ lines), it’s multi-threaded, it’s very fragile because it’s client-server architected at the mission level, it’s (differently) client-server architected at the galaxy level, it’s an MMO (don’t even get me started). The chicken choreography part alone (which ensures that chickens move in a coordinated manner) is something beyond the typical programmer’s capabilities (I’m mentioning this explicitly because it’s precisely what I had trouble with during the iPhone sub-contracting).
CIU code even exposes compiler bugs, and those are rare.
It would take someone with 10+ years of experience in multiple domains (concurrency, geometry, asynchronous and distributed systems, performance, networking, databases) to even consider looking at it. And it would take months of becoming familiar enough with it to make contributions.
So, realistically, programming help is not going to happen. Anyone already good enough to tackle this project is probably already running their own company 
.
What is much more likely is finding help with (a) concept drawings for spacecraft / enemies / waves / weapons (b) artists that can do 3D modelling / texturing ( c) sound designer.
As for (a), the forum goes a long way toward that. (b) is possible, although any hiring would be done based on their existing work, and I haven’t yet seen any fan work that’s up to standard. And different toolchains (e.g., different modelling software) is always a problem when integrating ‘outside’ work. ( c) could also work, but sound design is not such a huge time/effort burden anyway.