While it can be frustrating I think it's fair to say that it's up to maintainers or project owners to decide what fits into the vision of their project, and the

While it can be frustrating I think it's fair to say that it's up to maintainers or project owners to decide what fits into the vision of their project, and therefore contributing a change (particularly a feature addition and not a bug fix) does come with the sizeable risk that it's not actually what the maintainers want and will therefore be rejected. Of course, if it's too strict then people will stop contributing entirely. But if it isn't stright enough then the project can suffer from bloat and a lack of a unifying vision. This becomes less of an issue if there's some level of expectation management involved. e.g. here is what we would like contributions for, here are things that we won't, and if you're unsure about any of it, open an issue about it before investing all your time and effort.