Long-time contributors are so valuable to a project. I know that in some cases progress can be impeded by entrenched thinking from entrenched project members, but I think that for a FOSS project like Emacs they're the most valuable asset, above users, code, mindshare, features.
You can't let someone dictate direction just because they've been around a long time, or because they've sent a lot of patches. You also can't let someone have Wikipedia-editor-like feudal authority over some area just because they feel like they own it. I get that. Outside these cases though I think whatever can be done to keep core maintainers happy and on-board is probably best for the project and best for the ecosystem.
You can't let someone dictate direction just because they've been around a long time, or because they've sent a lot of patches. You also can't let someone have Wikipedia-editor-like feudal authority over some area just because they feel like they own it. I get that. Outside these cases though I think whatever can be done to keep core maintainers happy and on-board is probably best for the project and best for the ecosystem.