"names and figures I do trust have the chance to examine whatever I intend to use and comment on it, observe it, and make assessments, including shaming poor implementations claiming traits they have no right to" does not necessarily require openness - third party audits, if done by people who you do trust, can do the same thing for closed systems, for example as described in the tptacek's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385507 above.
Audits done by a select few who were given privileged access by definition are not open or transparent. You don't just want conclusions to be published, you want the methodology and source material to be too so the findings are reproducible.
