You're not being a jerk, but you are applying wisdom. The challenge is that if we don't have the courage to be foolish, then we will not make progress.

All the problems with a stateful connection are solvable, but we have yet to figure out the right way to teach the discipline of doing it right. It is an exceptionally expensive proposition to solve, so most people shouldn't solve it as they will be picking up a huge bill.

The challenge is that HTTP is fundamentally broken for stateful experiences, and people are trying to build that into everything these days. They want shit to update across machines, and polling is exceptionally easy at great cost.