The reason being that they can't handle any form of constructive criticism very well. I dare you to make a comment about the USB design, open hardware vs blob thing, I will bring the popcorn. They have an extremely negative stance against competitors products which I don't understand. If it is real about the children and education I don't see how "competing" products that drives the prices down, are something bad in that regards. For me it is a healthy thing.
Personally since the beginning I've had a very negative vibe due to how to they communicate on their blogs, in comments, deal with people who have different opinions,... . I'm not one bit surprised that in the communications with the lakka dev(s) they made the impression of being unfriendly. You really don't have to be in direct communications with them to get that impression.
But they have the advantage of having a good product which in the end is maybe the most important thing. They make darn good inexpensive hardware.
I mean, you're bad-mouthing a few people here, and it'd be nice if I could check.
The boards like Cubieboard are stuck with a 3.4 kernel (if you want to use GLES), because unlike other manufacturers, they don't pay people to ensure proper software support. Some manufacturers also claim software compatibility with the RPi images, which is impossible, but may trick some beginners in buying their hardware. Dishonest, right?
And yes, we sent a mail to the RPi foundation to ask for some free sample (we are not a commercial organisation) and they told us very politely to not expect anything from them. They ignored our request to include Lakka in NOOBS two times. Still, their hardware works and they pay enough people to work on software so if you want something that just works, go for it.
"Cons: [...] The RPi Foundation is not friendly, they don’t reply to our mails about including Lakka on NOOBS."
http://www.lakka.tv/doc/Hardware-support/
seems to be an odd mis-match of tones on the site...