Then again, you will also see that long-timers expressed very much the same concerns over time, just more politely.
That's unfortunately a rather selective view. You will also be able to see the opinion that introducing Nasal was bad for the project from long timers. That the way the effect system is implemented made FG go downhill. And a nice mixture of other concerns.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see it.
You go on about the same three cases which weren't merged - the sports thing (whatever this was, it predates my time), the radio propagation and OSGEarth.
The last two I witnessed - and there's common themes to them:
* substantial patches arrive without warning
* the patches do get discussed and reviewed - and are ultimately rejected with technical reasons stated
* the authors of the patches drop it at this point
As indicated before in this thread, there's an inherent danger in not testing the waters and doing half a year or more of work without discussing with anyone. Maybe that has something to do with the problem.
In contrast, canvas (the example you yourself cite) did make it in and gave someone new commit rights. So it's not that the procedure never works - sometimes patches go through, sometimes not. Sometimes people are more persistent, sometimes they drop it after the first 'no'.
Whether this is a huge problem depends on what you consider important. If you consider Nasal as such a huge problem, I guess you'll have no trouble finding people who think giving me commit rights to FGData was a mistake. If you believe in deferred rendering, you'll find people who think ALS derailed the future of the FG project.
So at the end of the day, the crisis really is that FG didn't develop the way you (someone else,...) preferred. But we could tell the crisis story completely differently - I'm guessing it could also be told (=I'm pretty certain it is told) in a way that too many people got commit rights already, thus muddling with a clear and straightforward vision how the optimal FG code should be and so ruining the sim.
At the end of the day, it's your impression that encouraging OSGEarth & Co would have been vital for the future and losing them by asking for technical changes was a fatal mistake vs. the impression that the way these patches were structured would have been bad for the project.
At the end of the day, it's your impression that attracting developers is more important than looking at how potential developers interact with the rest of the project - and suddenly presenting a huge patch isn't perhaps the best interaction.
At the end of the day, it's your opinion that the people being reviewed are superiorly skilled in comparison to their reviewers.
I think that what Curt objects to - you're entitled to your impression of what is important, but you're cherry-picking quotes and incidents to give the impression that this would be a widely shared view and you're just the only one who talks about it. And that I don't believe it is. The sentiments you quote have been expressed by some - but I've also seen plenty of the exact opposite. I've also had my exchanges with some of the patch authors you mention, and at least in one case I did not get the impression that I am talking to someone who even tries to be a team player.
So there's that.