Reason and BuckleScript community alone produced so many cool things that can only taken away from my cold dead hands, so I strongly disagree here. My first encounter with OCaml was through that, and ReasonReact, and everything that came after that was cherry on top. I can name lots of “killer OCaml apps” for the work I do. Just the last few commenters on this topic alone produced so many high quality and well-documented libraries I thoroughly enjoy using.
I haven’t been a part of this community long enough to have a concern about its size or direction, if there should be some. Maybe it’s because I’m used to being part of even smaller language communities with tiny industry adoption, or maybe because I’m not a person that usually thinks about things like “community building”, “growth”, “beginner-friendliness”. But still, I disagree with the alarmist attitude. I already got back so much more than my money’s worth from what little investment I’ve made learning OCaml.
edit: I’m getting off topic quite a bit, but bear in mind that I’m a newcomer who’s looking at OCaml community from outside most of the time. And I explicitly want to grow more and be a part of “the labor pool available for working on improvements” you mentioned, no matter how small it is at the moment. Because of this, I guess I’m inclined to strongly disagree with your statements and won’t get convinced of them easily 