I think that you could do a better job of explaining and promoting the problem that you're trying to solve here. Emphasis on the problem, not so much the solution.
As a specific recommendation here - submit patches with a complete commit message. Tweak it for each new version so that any prior discussion that informed the general design of the patch is reflected in the commit message.
This doesn't solve the "experience" issue by itself but does allow someone with interest to jump in without having to read an entire thread, including false-starts and half-ideas, to understand what the patch is doing, and why. At the end of the day the patch should largely speak for itself, and depend minimally on the discussion thread, to be understood.
