Meetings are not for information but relation.
That's a good point. And it is a sad fact that in todays society, more often than not, it's 'good relations' that makes things happen. In a perfect world, everyone should act logically, without taking into account personal relationships. But that's not how it is.
For example, there's some people who cannot stand critisism, so if you at one point direct an 'attack' in their direction, in the future, they will always reject, stall or otherwise make life difficult for you. And of course, they will always point to formalities, and the real reason (that you're an obnoxious person that actually see through their lies and deception and tell the truth) will never be displayed.
Thereof the concept of being a 'political chameleon'.
So all in all - if the lads at bitcoin foundation do some pub rounds with some 'important regulators', then the regulators would think they're all jolly good chaps, and that will add to their decisions in the future.
Well - it ain't all that simple - but surely, human relationships are very important when you need to have things done, and when you have a good relationship with someone, you have a much better starting point for your next discussion, than starting with the knowledge in the back of your head that the last time you talked together it was because you rightfully pointed out their incompetence an ineptitude. Nobody likes to hear that, even though it's the truth.
Being a 'tech-person', it's often annoying to deal with irrational behaviour in people, and when people act unprofessionally and just expect you to 'suck it up', then I think it is time to set things right, but sometimes that will just damage relations, so perhaps diplomacy is the way to go in that regard.
Diplomacy works only to a limited degree, because you never know that the guy you established good relation with might be hated by another guy who has higher political power. The ultimate thing that decide is the power, and it changes from time to time
In an enterprise, power of tech experts are very high in R&D decision making, but they were ruled by the marketing guys, since that's where all the money comes from, and money ultimately decide every project
With bitcoin, people first time in history get hold of the money through tech, this make things complicated, it shifted a lot of power from politicians and bankers to tech guys like ASIC device manufacturer and software developer. Actually this power shifting is already happening for many years in IT industry, but because of money, it never made any real sense, an IT expert was just another skilled worker ruled by capitalism
But, if one day our world is mostly regulated by the computer and network geeks, will it be better for humanity?
This is the same question as: Who should be the guy at Bitcoin Foundation to set the roadmap for bitcoin?