It's an issue with non DemCent organizations as well. DemCent just acts like a shibboleth in many of these conversations, it isn't actually being applied coherently most of the time. Even when a DemCent organization is functional it can often be not particularly successful at implementing DemCent.

One of the biggest challenges is in building cadre, the people who should would be democratically making decisions. They are often underdeveloped both theoretically and practically. What this ends up meaning is that for good direction to be maintained, DemCent has to be partially abandoned to force a better decision. It happens all the time and usually relies on the good reputation and influence of leadership. But this is not sustainable. The only thing that is sustainable is the development of cadre and involving them in leadership. Orgs that grow fast are at risk of having a mass of undeveloped cadre that is unsustainable. Orgs that grow too slow because they are all about well-developed cadre (honestly I'm not sure if I've every seen one despite memes about e.g. Maoist reading groups) would presumably face irrelevance. It's a tough subject to tackle given low capacity to develop cadre in the first place and part of important discussions about party building vs base building (I don't fall strictly into either camp). I can't give specific advice except that I believe any US-based org needs to treat cadre development as the #1 priority.