While that might have made the community feel a little better, I don't think the maintainer had to do anything, certainly they don't have to explain why they made this or that decision.

People should decide if it's a big deal for them and if it is, fork the project to fix the issue or move to another library. I have had to do this many times myself, I kind of thought that's just how things worked with smaller projects. More than once I've found someone of a like mind has _already_ forked and made the change.