At Addoncon, there was a lot of talk about how to compensate Firefox add-on developers. One of the ideas mentioned was some sort of user point system where points could be allocated to add-on developers by users and also based on usage and then the add-on developers could either donate it to a cause, turn it into merchandise, or turn it into real money.
What this does is provide a way to compensate add-on developers for the contributions they are making to the overall Firefox brand equity.
I have a longer summary of this idea on the Addoncon blog and would love to get feedback.