The soundness argument usually didn't carry water and was presented by people who were very much out of their depth (not that I was any more in-depth, but at le

The soundness argument usually didn't carry water and was presented by people who were very much out of their depth (not that I was any more in-depth, but at least I stayed out of the way). The author and others addressed a lot of unnecessary unsafe, though. That which was left remained a sore point for those who demanded code purity. The author was a one-man army who took flak for way too long. Repeated requests to resolve non-issues blinded him to requests revealing actual concerns. It's analogous to the story of the boy who cried wolf. He was not respectful, but also had been fighting way too many battles for too long and consequently was all out of patience. It was a bad situation waiting to boil over.