I think it's in the interest of the developers and the players to make popular suggestions more prominent.
There should be a voting/ranking system (kind of like Reddit) through which players can literally upvote or downvote suggestions they like instead of posting +1 on the thread. This way, popular suggestions will not be pushed back by the influx of more recent, but less popular suggestions.
Alternatively, you guys can create monthly polls with some changes the developers are considering. Players can then directly vote for the suggestions they like. I think that will give developers more quantitative feedback about what the community wants. In addition, it allows the players to know what suggestions are being considered and what is clearly off the table.
tl;dr version:
1. Add vote counters to every thread on the Suggestions forum. Allow players to vote for or against each suggestion. Sort the suggestions by positive popularity.
2. If #1 is too hard to implement, create a monthly poll to get feedback from players. Poll should list ideas the developers are considering.
Ideally each suggestion should be formatted like this:
------Descriptive Title----------------------------------------[+ votes / - votes] <--click on one to vote; can only vote once.
(Link to details)________(Link to discussion thread)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isnt that kinda mean?