I'm struggling to understand your negativity here.. Sorry, that was indeed a bit harsh. I wanted to point out that Bram Molenaar is probably well-aware of DFAs

I'm struggling to understand your negativity here.. Sorry, that was indeed a bit harsh. I wanted to point out that Bram Molenaar is probably well-aware of DFAs given how well-known they are and how many implementations there are available. I don't think Russ Cox has much too do with it and rather that it is driven by demand - linear time matching is attractive for syntax highlighting.