We could just open another question for every topic and have people make suggestions in the form of answers (which can easily be voted up and down). Instead we use the starring system of the chat. That seems like "we're doing it wrong"TM.
The question could even be closed once the topic was chosen and the score embedded in the original question text.
This is just a guess and I wasn't there when Fringe was picked as the Topic of the Fortnight, but I figured it happened casually and with a little excitement that this would be new.
I agree that providing suggestions via an answer is the better way to go. It gives everyone a voice, as not everyone utilizes the chat room. And people would more easily know where to go to vote and make suggestions if there is a post specifically for that.
My reasoning behind the dedicated chat room is so we can discuss the topics we might want to promote, and have discussion over what could be changed.
I hadn't anticipated moving the topic of the fortnight to chat would be so troublesome; I made a post on meta to announce this new chat, and alerted the standard chat room. It also requires less effort on my part.
If people prefer to discuss such things on meta, we can move there.
