I've noticed that the bug reports get a lot of requests that technically aren't bugs.
Perhaps the feature requests should be handled in a similar manner.
Someone has an idea, submits it, then a "curator" evaluates it and either puts it in a todo list or in a todon't list. Similar requests get put together. The todo list gets voted on by necessity rather than popularity.
The idea being that you can deal with the requests in a timely manor while not overloading the development.