He's not unaffiliated, he's a Director of Engineering at Sentry [0]. Whether that means he has a say in who got paid I don't know, but I can see how that would feel a bit off to OP.
Edit: I'm also not 100% sure which projects OP was referring to. I just looked through the Google sheet and can't find anything by him, but I could have missed something.
Possible but not actual. Pallets is the project in question here, and Armin is only barely involved anymore, specifically he doesn't see any of the money they raise.
Edit: I'm also not 100% sure which projects OP was referring to. I just looked through the Google sheet and can't find anything by him, but I could have missed something.
[0] https://lucumr.pocoo.org/about/