It's evolved. There was a point that Tom Lane was the last line of defense against anything that strayed too far. Heck at one of Postgres conferences there was

It's evolved. There was a point that Tom Lane was the last line of defense against anything that strayed too far. Heck at one of Postgres conferences there was a shirt that said something like "Tom Lane reviewed my patch and all I got was this stupid shirt." While he was not a BDFL style person, in the past, if he didn't like a change, it didn't make it in.