If the "no" argument here was what you are saying, that they don't want the feature bloat of XPath, then that would be reasonable. But they are actually arguing

If the "no" argument here was what you are saying, that they don't want the feature bloat of XPath, then that would be reasonable. But they are actually arguing that they don't want the feature bloat of XML capability, and XPath doesn't need to have any dependency on XML capability. So they haven't really addressed the request itself, and they are being extremely dismissive about any suggestion that they might be interpreting things in an unfair light. I think that is why people are frustrated. I don't even want this feature and I am frustrated just by reading the linked thread.