I feel less informed and more confused than before I read it.

This whole discussion is weird. People arguing about whether cruft does or does not exist in the codebase, and all of a sudden "I have no interest in discussing anything with you". Is there some pre-existing beef here?

There is, but I'm not aware of the specifics that led to this level of animosity. All I can say for sure is that over the past year or so, there has been arguments regarding Sawyer's initial Perl 7 plan in public and private, and mst is extremely blunt.

Definitely a non-neutral history, but also nearly a year of intense discussions that would leave even a saint feeling burnt out. The emotional reaction was unwarranted here, but quite understandable.