As a counter point, on my grand jury only one or two people even wanted to be foreman, and neither were viewed as "knowing what they were talking about", since election happens on day one and no one really knows anyone else at that point. Civil cases may be different but I don't get the general impression lots of people are vying for the job. It may be a case of adverse selection: anyone angling to be foreman probably shouldn't be made foreman :)
"Foreman" has nothing to do with being an thought leader, they're just the person selected to interact directly with the judge. In the jury I was on, he also moderated the discussion when it got too heated. But he deliberately avoided giving his opinion until after everyone else had spoken and tried not to have any more influence than any other juror.
(That didn't keep the jury from making a decision I disagree with, but I certainly don't blame the foreman.)
In the criminal trial I served on (rape, kidnapping, theft, assault with a deadly weapon), I was not elected to be jury foreman, but asked to by the judge. The duties were pretty minimally specified, but mostly to be the point of contact with the judge. During deliberations I would attempt to keep our one pontificator from droning on by asking him a question about something he'd just said and then asking others the same question so as to keep all involved, and also ll feeling as if they'd been involved, without pissing anyone off - unhappy people often make rash decisions.
That just underscores how important the process of jury selection is, and how potent it will be if Samsung can show that they did not get a fair chance to evaluate the jury through actions of others in the trial (they don't have to blame the foreman; they could blame the judge for not questioning him well enough).
