Devcoins are not about value through scarcity. It is one of the few coins that aren't actually about the coin at all, and only use the cryptocurrency part as a tool to achieve something of greater value - proliferating open source and creative commons. I understand that people don't like seeing the current price, but there is a reason for it, and it's not a bad thing. Even at this price, people are still excited to release open source toys (
http://coinzen.org/index.php/topic,150.msg34312.html#msg34312), and writing on devtome is still going strong (63% of shares for round 37:
http://dvccountdown.blisteringdevelopers.com/).
The codebase needs to remain extremely conservative, and will leverage the effort of bitcoiners in that regard. As Sidhujag noted, the more complexity we add to the code, the more we have to manage ourselves and the more potential problems we create. We're not going to uniquely modify the source code unless it is absolutely necessary, especially not for the sake of price manipulation. Nearly all alt-coins that try to differentiate themselves by algorithmic rules are essentially worthless, because they don't offer enough of an advantage over bitcoins to convince bitcoin holders to transfer liquidity. Bitcoins offer enough of a difference between themselves and other currencies like the USD, or Paypal et al, to convince people to put money into it. They're backed by a strong development team, cryptography, and the largest community and network hash power by far.
The true innovation of Devcoins, and why anyone should bother investing in them, are the receiver files. These are the lifeblood of the devcoin community, and they are managed by human beings. This is as revolutionary to bitcoins as bitcoins are to fiat. The value of investment is going to depend solely on the actions of those humans, much like the stock in a company. There is an element of philanthropy here, rather than one of investment, but that's not to say someone can't invest in the coin if they think the people giving their work over to the project for shares, are giving them at a discount. A top writer might be able to earn $100/hour, but if they're writing on devtome for $15/hour, but at $100/quality, a savvy investor might realize that the project actually gains that difference. Of course, for every $100/hour writer on devtome there might be ten $5/hour writers, but there is a value there that counts.
The receiver files (and all the others) are completely transparent, and anyone can see a forum post explaining exactly when and why a person received those shares. If you think it's being handled well, then invest not in the coin, but in the people performing open source and creative commons work at a value less than their worth to the world. Oddly enough, the best writers tend to keep coming back while the poor ones tend to either stop writing or improve, so there is sustained value being created every single round.
For those of you who don't frequent our home on coinzen, Unthinkingbit is taking a step back as lead administrator, and has asked me to take his place. We're working out the details, but rest assured I will attend this coin with the same dedication that he has shown.
EDIT: Here's a chart for dvc/usd going back two years:
http://dvcusdchart.blisteringdevelopers.com/dailyAs you can see, the very bottom in price has been stably higher after every successive explosive period. Anyone who invested in any of these down periods has had many opportunities to do extremely well. The satoshi price is not an issue with devcoins, or the way that it's working, but an issue with the sheer increase in the price of bitcoins over all this time.
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