"The collective community typically deliberates on important new changes (such as the EIP’s that are included in hard forks), independent of Vitalik’s opinion or guidance."

Wrong - spend just a little time on Ethereum Magicians. The only person who gets any notice on an EIP is VB. MZ and TB do whatever he tells them to do. Just look at all the prioritized development - 1559, ETH2.0. All other EIPs are immediately shot down. MZ does the code merges - he controls everything. VB "gives him an idea" and then he directs the ACD calls and steers the conversation to where his boss wants it to go.