Only if you have maintainers everywhere. I live in a small city in the middle of the US - how far is it to a maintainer? 4 hours to Kansas City, or fly to San Francisco? Either way the burden seems far too high.

Non-textual can mean audio or video call, not necessarily in person.

Isn't the burden being that high the point? It keeps a small team who all know each other working on it, and everyone who does get on the team has some high investment in the project.