You raise an interesting point.
I too have questioned the veracity of the current way in which bug reports are prioritised for action.
Action apparently based on a simple ‘head count’ of votes.
I don’t think anyone wants to get bogged down with metrics here, but the simple expedient of incorporating a time component into the current method would perhaps allow for a more reactive choice
as to where the bug ‘fixing’ effort should be focused.
Eg.
200 reports in 1 week = average 28 per day.
500 reports in 8 weeks = average 09 per day.
Of course, these averages would change in a non-linear fashion [averages would start high
and taper off over time]. But this is what I meant when I said “more reactive”.