As for prior discussions in this area, this is what I found:
- Future of the "ansible" package · Issue #82 · ansible-community/community-topics · GitHub
- "Community-approved collections" instead of file inclusion in the Ansible package. · Issue #198 · ansible-community/community-topics · GitHub
- Collection Inclusion: are we satisfied with how things are going? · Issue #152 · ansible-community/community-topics · GitHub
There may be more places so making this post a wiki. Feel free to edit and add other places where this was discussed.