[Marco van Herwaarden]

To answer the original question, Dream is very close.

There are basically 2 types of coders around on vB.org (using coders as example, but same applies to Designers).

The occasional/hobby coder:
- Will code (mostly) for fun. Will often release his work for free.
- Will most likely code for his own website/interest and will release it when it can serve more people. This is most likely also the reason why you will find more modifications on the same topic: each has been developed for the own board of the coder without looking at existing modifications.
- Might take a paid/unpaid request, but only if the topic is also of interest to the coder and time needed is limited.

The profesional/fulltime coder:
- Will not look at the free requests in most cases. Might pick the best suggestions to release a few free modifications that will get high installs in order to advertise his knowledge and to get more paid orders.
- Will not take any low paid requests. Very likely mostly interested the better paying (time versus money) jobs.

Then there are members who will take the lesser paying (often non-coding) requests. Often members who are still not considered an expert are taking these jobs and the taker will often use it to learn while on the job.