"Literate people have spent years learning the spelling of leaden and its likes and will be reluctant to admit that if the adjective acquires the form leden, their troubles were not worth the effort. In my opinion, our only hope to make progress is to adopt a minimalist program, trying to reach the desired goal by alienating no one and taking one small step after another over possibly several decades."

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This is an odd example to lead with. Leaden's root is lead, and one of its meanings is "made of lead". If we change its spelling to leden, then what do we do with "lead"? If we change lead to led, then we replace one confusing homonym with another homonym that's a homophone to boot. If we don't, we make it harder for readers unfamiliar with the meaning of leden to deduce its meaning from the root. This is not an unambiguously good change.

The reality of English is that there is no central authority on spelling, pronunciation, grammar, or even vocabulary. Dictionaries merely catalogue what is in common use. This may make the language anarchic to some, but it also welcomes foreign loan-words, idioms, etc. in a way that serves international users and enriches native speakers. The accepted spelling of some words has changed over time because of common usage. This society, instead of looking for some way to enact sweeping reforms, should just pick a couple or even just one word that could be simplified without causing side-effects and promote that change. If that change catches on, people may generalize it to similar words on their own.