During the Zcon3 Town Hall, then-ZF board member Peter Van @Valkenburgh gave an excellent perspective on the wisdom of incorporating “ZEC holders into the governance process in a formal and binding manner”.
(The relevant section starts 90 seconds in.)
My personal views (and please note that I’m not speaking for ZF in this post) on the topic of coinholder voting as a governance mechanism have been heavily influenced by Vitalik’s excellent blog post on the topic, in which he identifies three major “problems with coin voting even without explicit attackers”:
These problems are relevant when considering whether coinholders should play a significant role in Zcash governance (including funding decisions).
For Zcash, the question of whether coinholders’ interests are naturally aligned with the Zcash mission, principles and values is a critical one.
Simplistically*, the motivation for any individual’s interest in and involvement in Zcash can be plotted on a spectrum with “Mission” at one end, and “Self-Interest” at the other.
(＊ The reality is a lot more complex and nuanced - this is merely a simplistic mental model to help consider how someone is likely to act. )
Someone on the “Mission” end of the spectrum is likely to be primarily motivated by Zcash’s mission of financial privacy, its values (e.g. personal freedom, inclusiveness) and principles (e.g. open source, permissionlessness). At the extreme, they are likely to be interested in supporting or contributing to the Zcash project whether or not they receive payment or recognition for doing so.
By contrast, someone on the “Self-Interest” end of the spectrum is likely to be primarily motivated by greed (“Make number go up!” 
) or ego (e.g. the prospect of using Zcash to enhance their own standing or influence). Such a person is more likely to prioritize their own self-interests over the Zcash mission. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with allowing self-interest to influence one’s decisions (let’s face it - we all do it!) but, an issue is likely to arise if someone is willing to act amorally (e.g. by lying or concealing information that ought to be disclosed), and actively undermine the Zcash mission to further their own interests.
I’m not suggesting that coinholders are solely motivated by self-interest but I think that, in general, they are more likely to be closer to the “Self-Interest” end of the spectrum.
Imagine a scenario in which compromising Zcash’s mission, values or principles would likely increase (or prevent a decrease in) the price of Zcash (e.g. weakening Zcash’s privacy in order to avoid wholesale delisting from exchanges). The more coins a person holds, the more they stand to benefit if the price or ZEC increases. That creates an inherent conflict of interest between the Zcash mission, and that individual’s interests.
None of this is intended to suggest that all coinholders are amoral. I don’t doubt for a moment that many existing coinholders (including whales) are, in fact, very close to the “Mission” end of the motivation spectrum. The problem is that, if we adopt a system that hands control of Zcash governance (or funding) to coinholders, that will inevitably attract carpetbaggers who seek to wield that control to benefit themselves.
I’m genuinely interested in hearing coinholders’ views. I really want to hear from folks like @outgoing.doze, to understand their motivation for holding ZEC, and what they think we should be prioritising.
However, I don’t believe that a ZEC whale’s views should automatically eclipse, say, 200 active community members simply because those 200 people collectively own fewer ZEC than the whale.