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While being open and receptive to new players is fine and dandy, allowing them to shape the game is like letting students pick out their own curriculum and grading standards, or taxpayers to pick out how much they'll pay each year.
Depends on what you mean by "shape the game". Make rules decisions? Yeah, that could end badly. Design lists? Set policy? Help grow the community? Decide generally how the game should work (should games take nine hours or one? Should rules design focus around the tourney scenario or move outside that?)? All those things can be done acceptably, or even well, by newer players. Indeed, taking advantage of their enthusiasm is likely to be necessary to avoid buring out people.
Allowing players to shape the game they want to play makes sense, since the purpose of a game is to provide enjoyment for those people (the purpose behind the other two systems you mention is not the happiness of the participants).
Epic is not some monolith that stands independent of its player base. Nor should it be.
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I just don't see how we can move forward without older experienced players exclusively guiding the game. This will be obvious to most and ruffle the feathers of some, but it does need to be stated.
People need to feel that their voices are heard and respected, even if they're not necessarily as weighty as others, or if they don't have the final say over everything. Otherwise they stop caring and quit. That's important for new players just as much as it is for old. Guidance is one thing. "Exclusive" guidance sounds a bit...restrictive.
Obviously there needs to be some form of governance to ensure that nothing breaks. But, personally, I think it's important to maximize the input from those outside the established structure, rather than minimize it. Not least because having a larger group of people more invested in what happens may help when the time comes to actually do the resulting work.
