[dkfellows]

Yes, that's at least technically possible. On the other hand, there's enough work that I believe it very unlikely that anything would be rejected like that provided it works well with the rest of the language, and is reasonably documented and tested. I also know the people involved; we're more of the "You're doing the work? Let us hold your coat for you." persuasion.

The bounties are not large enough to pay someone to solve them. The ones that are fairly low value are likely to get picked off rapidly by the existing community by just focusing their attention slightly differently. The high value ones are in the class where you'd need a team of expert programmers to take them on, and would expect to be supporting them for an extended period of time; that can burn through $100k in pretty short order. (Yes, I'm working on that particular bounty, but I was doing so before the bounty was announced. I know how exactly difficult it is.)

IOW, these are all rewards for success, not pay for doing.