For me, the 7.4 enhancements are essential, the join optimizations make the difference between "app works" and "app doesn't work", because queries (that can't be changed) that previously ran for ages for non-obvious reasons now speed up to <<1 second. The planner reached a new level of maturity.
I spent weeks doing hash aggregates, weeks doing IN-subselect optimization, and am in the middle of many weeks on FE/BE protocol improvement. I am sorry that you don't see these as killer features ... but they are all things that we desperately needed to do.
I'd recommend continuing enhancement work on pgsql, and if a majority feels that features are so killing the version is bumped up one major.
I wouldn't see a yet another platform as a reason for this, rather something that vastly extends the field of operation (2PC was mentioned, maybe PITR).
Regards, Andreas
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