Individual networks can have a group to work on them. For the hundreds or thousands (not really sure) of networks, it becomes a problem to have a committee or a board to run development. A board or a committee by definition is a small (relatively) group of people who will run things or direct things or whatever. Instead, I'd suggest letting everyone who is interested join together at one location to work on development rather than being run/directed by a specific group.
As for your second point, you're looking at it in such a way that nothing would ever be done. You're looking at it as if it were an endless loop where IRC won't improve because mIRC isn't going to support it right away, and mIRC won't improve because IRC doesn't have new features and so on.
Instead, there is nothing wrong with looking at it the same way as other things are done. For example, graphics cards (top end) have features and abilities added to them that are not used in any games or apps at the time they are developed... and, in some cases, for months or even as much as a year after. But, because they are developed with the goal of the features being used in the future, then game developers can go ahead and start adding the features as they need them. The same would work perfectly well with IRC. If a feature is added to IRC that won't be used immediately, but which people are sure will eventually be used once mIRC and other clients are updated to use it, then there will be improvement. With your view of it, nothing would ever be done.
