Unfortunately yes, we have to do everything ourselves.. Unless another developer take over and fork the coin; our only exit strategy is to be listed somewhere else and sell our nodes.
Can we, just members of the community actually get the coin listed on other exchanges?
And how would one fork a coin? Don't you need a very high stake in the coin to do so?
If you copy and paste, you can fork this coin. The issue is, you need to be pretty savvy to do better than the current Dev. Not saying anything one way or another about the current Dev but development is one of those things that if it's easy, you're either doing it wrong or such a genius you should be doing something else. So, running a coin is tough. Accepted.
The three options of change then become:
1) Fork it in which case everyone gets a benefit INCLUDING the Dev (who holds about 25% of the coins). If you need to fork a coin because of the Dev, then, well, not such a great option. And now, you're the Dev, and development is hard.
2) Help the current Dev and do your part to fix the problems. Not sure if he has ever accepted any changes, but you can submit changes to the coins and improve things. If you need to fork a coin because of the Dev, then once again, this might not be the best option. And yep, development is hard.
3) Start a new coin. Since this coin is a DASH copy, copy the DASH code base, and start running your own coin, doing everything the way you think it should be done. Development is still hard.
The options for the non-Dev types become:
1) Hang in there, hope things get better and improve. They may or they may not.
2) Sell off and go to a different coin that is going in the right direction.
One of the most active members of this community chose the latter after spending considerable resources to try and fix a few issues that he could affect. In the end, he decided the coin wasn't heading in the right direction and moving on was the best move for him.