I really don't believe that old school rs gold the participant base is particularly great at determining which content, based on virtue, is good for the health and integrity of Runescape long-term. According to polling, the community generally liked 6hr NMZ but it was significant to remove. Players don't vote for any modifications that make things harder for them personally but over time which becomes a drawback as content becomes simpler and achievements are diluted, these are very slight but readily add up.
Another example is PvP and PK related changes which are consistently voted against. Individuals even voted against allowing pures wear chaps, despite having the ability to wear the variants. The only effect of this to accounts would have been to boost the need and therefore improve profits. This is not an example of polling fulfilling the interests of Runescape, it is just a meme of not liking pures. If we only see updates that match the exact same 75 percent of people every time the remaining 25 percent become more and more marginalised, which is not a good equilibrium when those 75/25 are apparently so often the very same individuals.
Not everyone is going to make sound decisions while voting, or create the"right" alternative. If literally everyone left the most educated voting choices. The United States wouldn't have the president does. Nothing longer, real world example of unemployment. Our voting system isn't perfect, but we all got to make sure we do not end up shoved down RS3 players throats. Our throats. There are definitely improves that could be made that don't undermine it though (that are not being done or tried ).
What destroy and will kill its integrity and this game is the disregard of the voting system which jagex is hoping to push as evident by this poll and has been doing. Then they'd not always have unclear and confusing wording in surveys also if jagex cared as much as they say that they do about it. Its a thing. You'd think it would get something or evidence read. Not even bare minimum work. To the contrary, the polling system works differently to life democracy. Our votes enable elected representatives who make decisions on our behalf so that they can (ideally ) be educated, informed and objective about the difficulties.
I'm not advocating to buy old school runescape gold dismiss or abolish the polling system and it is a helpful tool in holding the devs. On the other hand, the current polling system requires improvements or flexibility to satisfy the needs of the participant base and doesn't function. When 99% of content is left to the community to pick, I can not agree with all the exaggeration in your post about the continuous disregard of items that are polled. It is important to note that the events when they have been believed by Jagex needed to diverge from the polled result, it was because they felt forced to by the difficulties with the voting system.