I agree completely.
People are pretty much over their enthusiasm for weekend hackathons. It's not the thing when it comes to building robust, accessible public services. That's not to say that we don't want to tap into a specific tech community, create open APIs and think about releasing data and collaborating with these players. You can't build strong public services on a shoestring, and it's not the kind of thing that can be designed, developed, and maintained by somebody hanging out in their basement for a weekend.