While I agree that excessive GNOME-bashing is unhealthy, one of the problems the critics of GNOME (disclaimer: including me!) have is that GNOME frequently rej

While I agree that excessive GNOME-bashing is unhealthy, one of the problems the critics of GNOME (disclaimer: including me!) have is that GNOME frequently rejects submitted, complete patches, so unfortunately your argument doesn't hold. GNOME-supporters will probably reply to this that the (main?) reason such patches are rejected is that they go against GNOME's design vision, which is sort-of fair enough, but then conversely, why would you expect people who have different preferences to work on implementing GNOME's vision, which they don't agree with. Fortunately, there are projects like MATE or Cinnamon which give an outlet for the people who dislike the turn GNOME has taken.