Thanks for the feedback.
What you mentioned about assets is correct: it's currently neglected. Assets are our second biggest content type after games though, so it's something we want to build out some more. If you have any feature requests for assets I'd love to hear them.
Creating a crowdfunding site is complicated. There is a lot of liability involved, and you need to get special permission from payment providers. I think the existing crowdfunding sites do a good enough job right now, and I would rather have itch.io integrate with them instead of trying to compete.
As for what I can recommend our users to do to help out: I think a straight forward way to get more people involved (other than creating cool games), is to create content around game development and games. This could include writing tutorials on your devlogs, or creating interesting topics in our community. I think that in addition to being a platform for games, itch.io could also make a great resources for game developers, whether they're experience or not.