That sounds like it could be addressed in some way by asking for visibility into her dreamhack, independent of VCS.

Also, I'll say it because she won't, but the more well-intentioned efforts to change major underpinnings of this project, the more Dreamwidth risks losing kareila as a developer. Or never inducing people to contribute major feature development in the first place. It's hard enough to learn all the interlocking systems you need to understand in order to make even a minor contribution, that building something significant on a shifting foundation might seem impossible.